Honeybees. They have a difficult task. First, they have to find food. Then they have to return to the hive to tell their compatriots where to find it. The bees have to fly back and forth¹ between the hive and their food, over and over again. And they need to deal with whatever obstacles lie along their flight paths.

蜜蜂有一项很重要的任务。首先，它们需要找食物。然后再回到蜂巢告诉同伴去哪里觅食。所以蜜蜂不得不来回往返于蜂巢和食物之间，同时它们还得处理来回路线上的障碍。

"Honeybees face a lot of challenge in choosing efficient foraging² routes through dense³ environments. And we basically want to study how they choose effective routes…the safest and least energy-expending routes", said Marielle Ong, a researcher at the University of Queensland in Australia.

澳大利亚昆士兰大学的研究人员马里耶勒·昂表示：“在复杂的环境中，要快速找到觅食途径，蜜蜂需要面对大量的挑战。我们所要做的就是研究蜜蜂是如何找到最便捷的路线，同时也是最安全和最省力的路线的。”

To track the insects' navigation, she and her team set up tiny obstacle courses for more than a hundred honeybees.

为了跟踪昆虫的飞行路线，她和她的团队为100多只蜜蜂设置了小型障碍。

Along the way, the bees were forced to fly through one or the other of two openings of different sizes.

在这些路线中，蜜蜂不得不在两个尺寸不同的开口中选择其中之一飞过。

And as a group, the bees usually flew through the wider opening, which makes sense. Less chances of slamming their tiny bee bodies into a wall.

当以一个群体行动时，这些蜜蜂通常是从更大的开口中飞过去。这样，它们的小身体撞到墙上的几率就会降低。

But things got more interesting when Ong looked at the decisions made by individual bees, one by one.

但当马里耶勒·昂在研究蜜蜂个体时，发现它们选择的路线就变得有趣了。

"We found that 55 percent had no biases⁴, and the rest of the 45 percent was a split between left-handed bees and right-handed bees."

“我们发现，55%的蜜蜂是一致的，但是剩余45%的蜜蜂产生的分歧是左撇子和右撇子之间的差异。”

In other words, some honeybees have a sidedness. They obviously don't have hands, but let's say they're either right-handed or left-handed.

换句话说，一些蜜蜂有偏向性。很显然这是因为它们没有手，但是，我们暂且说它们是左撇子或者右撇子吧。

So, for example, a right-handed bee would prefer to navigate⁵ the cramped⁶ right-side opening in the obstacle than go through the left-side hole, even though it was larger and safer.

比如说，尽管左边开口更大更安全，但是右撇子蜜蜂往往会从狭窄的右侧开口飞过。

If all bees were right handed, it would take a long time for the entire group to pass through a small opening, such as a hive entrance. But by having a range of side biases, the entire swarm⁷ can move more quickly when it encounters an obstacle.

如果所有的蜜蜂都喜欢右侧，那么蜜蜂群体通过一个小的开口会消耗很长时间，例如蜂巢入口。但是，由于蜜蜂喜欢不同的方向，所以当遇到障碍时，整个群体就可以快速移动。