1. Can bees see colors inquiry
What is the adaptive advantage of color vision?

2. Hypotheses Bees cannot see blue Bees cannot see green
Bees cannot see yellow
Bees cannot see red

3. Protocol
Place a patchwork of colored squares. Cover the squares with a glass plate. Place a dish of unscented sugar syrup (25%) on one color. Place empty dishes on the other squares. After bees regularly visit the syrup laden dish, rearrange the colored squares and place empty dishes on each square.

5. Data collection
Before collecting data, clean the glass plate and all dishes to be certain that scent is not a factor
Return the patchwork grid and empty dishes to the original location
Count the bees that land on each colored square for 10 minutes
Have students repeat the experiment 3 for each color they want to test

6. Reporting findings Plot results for each trial as a histogram
Ask students what the results suggest about their hypothesis
Encourage students to speculate about how honey bees might benefit from color vision

7. Conclusions Bees have color vision Bees can see green, blue and yellow
Bees cannot distinguish red from black
This experiment will not show another important aspect of bee vision – that bees can see ultraviolet

8. Humans cannot see ultraviolet
Bees can see ultraviolet, but cannot see red