Simple eyes (bees) are rather small and triangular in the front of the crown. This combination of large and small eyes provides bees with excellent vision, which helps them survive. The ability to see ultraviolet and polarized light helps bees understand the world around them and locate flowers very accurately.
Bees have five eyes. They have two in the front of their head and three on the back of their head. The two at the front are compound eyes. The three on the back are called ocelli, and their purpose is to allow bees to check for predators behind themselves while they are busy pollinating flowers.
The unique ability of bees to see UV light helps them easily distinguish flowers, which helps them find nectar.
It’s important for bees to see the UV part of the spectrum because almost a quarter of flowers reflect UV light. These eyes enable the bees to see ultraviolet (ultraviolet) markings on the flower, which guide the bee to the flower’s landing site and reward it with nectar.
As shown in the image above, the visual abilities of bees extend into the ultraviolet part of the color spectrum and end near the yellow part of the spectrum. Honeybees have three photoreceptors in their eyes, which means their color vision is based on the three colors that the photoreceptors can read.
How a Bee’s Eye Differs from a Human’s
Bee eyes are similar to human eyes because bees are trichromatic, which means they have three photoreceptors in their eyes that combine to produce all the colors they can see. Among the many different colors they could see was one called “bee violet,” which is a combination of yellow and ultraviolet — something we couldn’t imagine.
When we see red, blue and green color combinations, bees can see blue, green and ultraviolet (UV) colors that the human eye cannot detect. The human-visible colors most likely to attract the attention of bees are violet, magenta, and blue, but when it comes to bee-attracting colors, ultraviolet (UV) is the best choice.
The three eyes only detect changes in light, not the patterns and colors that the compound eyes of bees can see. Three simple eyes, called monoculars, also help judge light intensity and maintain stability while navigating. Like all other bees, bees also have two compound eyes that allow them to see at high resolution (so they can see you approaching) and three simple eyes on the top of their heads, called monoculars. The triangular shape of the three small eyes on the top of their heads is a monocular and behaves very much like GPS bees.
Bees’ Eyes Are Easy to Miss
It’s easy to lose eyes when looking at a bee’s head because they’re too small to be where a bee’s eyes should be. Less obvious are the bee-eyed eyes, which are located in the form of a triangle at the top of the bee’s head. The two lower eyes are called the dorsal monocular and the middle one is called the central monocular. The other three monoculars (simple eyes) are located on the top of the head and are essential for helping bees navigate sunlight.
These tiny ocelli are thought to help the bees navigate during flight and navigate by judging light intensity. The ocelli, the 3 tiny ocelli located on the top of the bee, may not produce clear images, but the ocelli detect changes in light that seem to help the bees control flight.
The ocelli detect light intensity, meaning that if a predator approaches a bee from above, their ocelli detect their shadow and warn of the predator’s presence. The ocelli are very sensitive to light, which allows the bees to detect changes in brightness without being affected by other small objects in the bees’ field of vision.
Image Construction in the Eye of a Bee
These simple eyes don’t actually produce visual images, but they do allow the bees to determine light levels in a very sophisticated way. Like most insects, bees’ eyes are not designed to see high-resolution images like our eyes, but they see a mosaic image but are better at detecting motion than we are. These eyes tell insects, such as flies and bees, where the sky is and where the earth is through differences in light levels. The vision of honey bees is also much grainier than ours; the human eye can see about 100 times more detail than bees.
Both of these types of eyes have their own functions and together they provide amazing vision for a bee or honey bee so that they can effectively see flowers to collect nectar. Both of these types of eyes give the bees exceptional vision that helps them navigate in daylight, using the sun as a navigator. The bee’s two large compound eyes provide color and detail, while the lenses of three simple tiny eyes provide light and motion information. The important role that bees play in the environment is due to many factors, one of which is the fact that bees have three eyes or cells.
You may think of bees as small and annoying, but they play an important role in maintaining the ecosystem and benefit people in many ways. The bee also has six legs, two (sensory) antennae, which serve to smell (smell), taste (gustatory sensations), touch (tactile sensations) and communicate with other bees. Ocelli guides the bees to where they are flying, allowing them to judge the intensity of the light as they fly and determine the ultraviolet colors the flowers display (more on that later).
