When a honeybee is given a dose of cocaine, it gets overexcited about poor-quality food and performs overenthusiastic dances to communicate with its hivemates, according to an odd new study that got bees hooked on drugs.
The research found similarities between honey bees and humans, in that they are both are driven by rewards and both have their judgment altered by cocaine. "This is the first time that it's been shown that cocaine has been rewarding to an insect" [Reuters],
says study coauthor Andrew Barron. After a honeybee has been out foraging for food, it returns to the hive and tells the other bees what it found by means of a "waggle dance" that describes the location and quality of the food source.
But after dabbing low doses of cocaine on the bees' backs before they went out, the researchers observed that when they returned they were more likely to ...
