It's getting closer and closer to golf season and if you're struggling with your short game, try asking the nearest bee for some tips.

Just kidding of course, only select bees have been taught how to golf, so you would be among pretty elite company. Now, down to business. We expect there to be two kinds of people to click on this post:

  1. People who want to watch bees play golf
  2. People who want to know why bees are being taught to play golf

Now, the former of those two may be slightly disappointed to find out that these bees aren't teeing up on 14 and going for the green, but it's more like they're pushing balls into a hole with their faces. However, scientists called it golf and we don't know enough to disagree with them. After all, if frisbee golf is considered golf, we suppose this can be too. 

So for the people who want to watch the video, it's after this paragraph. For the people who want to know why bees are playing face golf, there is more info below.

Now, the reasoning for this experiment? To find out how smart bees are.

Scientists arranged a set of experiments to eliminate potential mirages of intelligence in the bees' behaviour. First, they showed some bees what to do and let others figure it out on their own. The ones shown what to do completed their task sooner, but both reached the end goal. They changed the hole location to know that they weren't imitating other bees that had already been rewarded. Heck, they even changed the colour of the ball to ensure that bees weren't just attracted to one colour.

In the end, the experiment was successful, in that the scientists were able to prove that bees have more capable minds than was thought in the past.

If playing golf is a good measure of unexpected intelligence, then wow, lookout for the very underrated BarDown crew.

(H/T to New Scientist)