Bees lick lips or shake head to show if they like or dislike food

When we try a food that we don't like, we generally give a noticeable reaction - and now a study has revealed that bumblebees do too.

Scientists at Macquarie University in Australia and Southern Medical University in China have discovered that bumblebees show a 'liking' and 'disliking' response to taste.

When a bee tastes something good it reaches out its glossa (an insect tongue) as if licking its lips, and when it doesn't like something it shakes its head and wipes its mouth.

This proves they have emotion-like behaviours, which until now were thought to only exist in mammals.

The research, led by researchers Fei Peng and Cwyn Solvi at Southern Medical University in China, used 18 colonies of bumble bees (Bombus terrestris).

For the first time ever the team used slow-motion video that captured how bumblebees show emotion.

They were given different solutions to try, including 60% sugar, 20% sugar, plain water, 5% salt, and quinine – a bitter substance found in the bark of the cinchona tree.

Prof Andrew Barron from Macquarie University said the bees displayed something called "post-consumption glossa" after tasting the sweet solution and kept on licking even after they'd finished drinking - but showed clear distaste for salt or quinine solutions.

Professor Barron has explained how the revelation changes our scientific understanding of the inner life of insects.

He said: "Facial expressions are an important window into the internal states of animals.

"There's always been a tension between thinking of insects as animals, or some sort of mini robots. This is another step towards showing there's an inner life to being a bee."

Professor Barron thinks the implications go further than just bees, maybe even to all insects, saying "there's no difference between a bee and a fly brain".

Professor Peng added: "Many people are comfortable saying that insects can sense, learn, and make decisions, but much less comfortable saying that they may evaluate things as pleasant or unpleasant.

"Our findings push on that intuition."

The results have been published in journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.