While working on her PhD, behavioral ecologist Samadi Galpayage led a landmark study that reached an unexpected conclusion—bumble bees roll wooden balls “just for fun.” Galpayage and co-workers hypothesized that similar to other animals that play, young bumble bees would play more than older bumble bees. In their experimental setup, a nest box containing a bumble bee colony was connected via a plastic tunnel to an unobstructed path that led to a foraging area that contained a food reward (sucrose and pollen). There were nine mobile, inedible wooden balls on the right of the unobstructed path and nine immobile, inedible balls on the left, so the bumble bees had to take a detour to get to the balls. Results of a study of younger bees (3 days old) and older bees (10 days old) are shown in the following box-and-whisker plot (see BioSkills 2). Eleven out of 13 younger bees rolled balls, and 14 out of 33 older bees rolled balls. For the bees that rolled balls, the number of ball rolling actions was measured. Use the P value provided to determine if the differences are significant or not (*means 𝑃<0.05, see BioSkills 3). What conclusion, if any, can be drawn about bumble bee ball rolling from this study? What might the researchers do next to further explore the role of play in bumble bees?
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