How Do Bees Count?

A solitary bee spontaneously knew how to remove a nail from her nest entrance. She tried to land on it and floor her wings backwards to pull the nail out. The challenge was not one that would have occurred at any point in bees' evolutionary history but nonetheless she solved it. Scientists then trained bees to fly along a path with several identical landmarks which they could only distinguish by their numerical position. They found that the landmarks were more important than the perceived distance in guiding the bees.