It’s been a while since my last post, so I’m hoping to find redemption by updating my blog with two brand new posts! The first relates to an incredible project carried out by Neuroscientist Beau Lotto (I made a film about the i-scientist programme with Beau Lotto in December last year, which has skyrocketed to the stratosphere as it’s received almost over 100,000 hits, since it was first uploaded.

But now, I’ve put together a trailer for his other ground breaking project, called Blackawton Bees: A study of bumblebees by a group of Devon children has become the first primary school project to be published in a Royal Society scientific journal.

The children, aged between eight and 10, discovered that bees could be trained to recognise colour patterns. The editor of the journal, Biology Letters, said it was a “world first”. The children from Blackawton tested bees to see if they could learn to use different colour patterns to find their way to sugar water, while avoiding salt water. They detailed their principal findings in the paper: “We discovered that bumblebees can use a combination of colour and spatial relationships in deciding which colour of flower to forage from. We also discovered that science is cool and fun because you get to do stuff that no-one has ever done before.”

Some of the children’s results tables were published in the journal. The Royal Society said the subject area was generally poorly understood, and the children’s findings were a “genuine advance” in the field. “This paper represents a world first in high quality scientific publishing,” said Professor Brian Charlesworth, editor of Biology Letters. “I hope that it will inspire other groups to realise that science is not an exclusive club but something that’s available for everybody.”