研究發現 蜜蜂也有像人類一樣的左右傾向

Honeybees. They have a difficult task. First, they have to find food. Then they have to return to the hive to tell their compatriots where to find it. The bees have to fly back and forth between the hive and their food, over and over again. And they need to deal with whatever obstacles lie along their flight paths.

蜜蜂有一項很重要的任務。首先，它們需要找食物。然後再回到蜂巢告訴同伴去哪裏覓食。所以蜜蜂不得不來回往返於蜂巢和食物之間，同時它們還得處理來回路線上的障礙。

"Honeybees face a lot of challenge in choosing efficient foraging routes through dense environments. And we basically want to study how they choose effective routes…the safest and least energy-expending routes", said Marielle Ong, a researcher at the University of Queensland in Australia.

澳大利亞昆士蘭大學的研究人員馬裏耶勒·昂表示：“在複雜的環境中，要快速找到覓食途徑，蜜蜂需要面對大量的挑戰。我們所要做的就是研究蜜蜂是如何找到最便捷的路線，同時也是最安全和最省力的路線的。”

To track the insects' navigation, she and her team set up tiny obstacle courses for more than a hundred honeybees.

爲了跟蹤昆蟲的飛行路線，她和她的團隊爲100多隻蜜蜂設置了小型障礙。

Along the way, the bees were forced to fly through one or the other of two openings of different sizes.

在這些路線中，蜜蜂不得不在兩個尺寸不同的開口中選擇其中之一飛過。

And as a group, the bees usually flew through the wider opening, which makes sense. Less chances of slamming their tiny bee bodies into a wall.

當以一個羣體行動時，這些蜜蜂通常是從更大的開口中飛過去。這樣，它們的小身體撞到牆上的機率就會降低。

But things got more interesting when Ong looked at the decisions made by individual bees, one by one.

但當馬裏耶勒·昂在研究蜜蜂個體時，發現它們選擇的路線就變得有趣了。

"We found that 55 percent had no biases, and the rest of the 45 percent was a split between left-handed bees and right-handed bees."

“我們發現，55%的蜜蜂是一致的，但是剩餘45%的蜜蜂產生的分歧是左撇子和右撇子之間的差異。”

In other words, some honeybees have a sidedness. They obviously don't have hands, but let's say they're either right-handed or left-handed.

換句話說，一些蜜蜂有偏向性。很顯然這是因爲它們沒有手，但是，我們暫且說它們是左撇子或者右撇子吧。

So, for example, a right-handed bee would prefer to navigate the cramped right-side opening in the obstacle than go through the left-side hole, even though it was larger and safer.

比如說，儘管左邊開口更大更安全，但是右撇子蜜蜂往往會從狹窄的右側開口飛過。

If all bees were right handed, it would take a long time for the entire group to pass through a small opening, such as a hive entrance. But by having a range of side biases, the entire swarm can move more quickly when it encounters an obstacle.

如果所有的蜜蜂都喜歡右側，那麼蜜蜂羣體通過一個小的開口會消耗很長時間，例如蜂巢入口。但是，由於蜜蜂喜歡不同的方向，所以當遇到障礙時，整個羣體就可以快速移動。