Visual communication

In a rainforest in Southeast Asia, a worker bee leaves her hive and flies in search of flowers. Dotted throughout the forest landscape, flowers shine in bright hues, signalling their presence to flying insects that will collect and transfer pollen. With each flower visit, the bee is rewarded with rich nectar. As she buzzes through the understory, she perceives the world around her as a complex array of reflected light in varying intensities, hues, and shades. Her eyes are honed to see a wide array of colours, perfect for detecting flowers. She senses the movement of leaves blowing in the wind and the terrain passing her by. She navigates around obstacles and over the undulating terrain, while maintaining her bearings for the critical flight home. As the sun passes across the sky, as clouds pass, and as the bee flies from shade into open sun, the light environment changes together with the information the light contains. As she forages she remembers which flowers she has visited and avoids them in favour of new unexplored flowers. She begins to associate particular colours, shapes, and sizes with nectar rewards, learning to distinguish which flower types are more profitable than others. The colours, shapes, and patterns of every object, the shadows they cast and the form of the landscape itself presents visual information that the bees sensory system must collect and process accurately so that she can fulfil her role of collecting food for the hive.