The article frames the behaviors it describes as "clever", but they're really not. The bees detect some pollen, get as near as they can, and their brain tells t

The article frames the behaviors it describes as "clever", but they're really not. The bees detect some pollen, get as near as they can, and their brain tells their bodies "try stuff!", and they exhibit some behaviors they typically use to get into small spaces or past objects. A "small minority" of the bees (quote from video of the test) get the pollen when they happen to try the right stuff. They excrete a chemical signaling to the other bees that they did something that worked, and the other bees can gradually copy the behavior. None of this is "clever" -- it's some amazing mechanisms they've selected into, but it's not figuring things out, using logic, or using tools. It's much more akin to a simple learning network playing super mario brothers and dying frequently until it eventually succeeds. It shouldn't surprise us that it only takes a few hundred thousand neurons to do (including a tiny, low-res, colorless visual cortex and olfactory system that maintain a tiny, low-res representation of their surroundings). I'm not dismissing the wonders of nature, just trying to add some detail to a write-up that glosses over _how_ these things are working.