Time to turn right Georgy Rozov/EyeEm/Getty

Derek Zoolander isn’t the only one who prefers to turn in one direction. Honeybees have a strong tendency to turn right when they enter an open cavity. This bias may help them make a collective decision about where to build new nests.

Directional biases exist in many animals, but they may be particularly important in social species for promoting cohesion within the group.

To see if honeybees have such a bias, Thomas O’Shea-Wheller of Louisiana State University allowed 30 bees to explore two boxes. One was open inside and the other contained a branching maze of narrow tunnels.


Out of 180 trials in the open cavity, the bees immediately turned right on 86 occasions but turned left just 35 times. On the remaining 59 occasions they flew straight ahead. What’s more, when they turned right in the experiment, they did so more quickly than when they turned left, suggesting it is a more automatic response.

However, in the branching maze they showed no preference for right or left.

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Bees explore spaces such as rock cavities and hollow trees when they are looking for a new nest site. They choose a site once a certain number of scouts are in the same place.

Having a consistent behavioural pattern might be important in this situation for helping the group come to a decision, says O’Shea-Wheller. “By entering in the same fashion and turning the same way, they are more likely to meet each other and get a better idea of the popularity of the site.”

It might also promote social cohesion in bees’ day-to-day life, when foragers return to the colony with food and water.

Honeybees have more smell receptors on their right antennae than on their left antennae, so the right-side preference also makes sense from a physiological perspective.

Previous research has found that ants also have a directional bias when they enter a cavity – although they prefer to turn left.

Journal reference: Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2018.0877