_edited.png)
We're thrilled to have the opportunity to chat with Craig P. Burrows, the brilliant mind behind What the Bees See: A Honeybee's Eye View of the World. The captivating book combines stunning ultraviolet-induced visible fluorescence (UVIVF) photography with in-depth research on bees.
Craig has spent nearly a decade perfecting his craft, capturing the mesmerizing, luminescent beauty of flowers through the ultraviolet spectrum. His book not only showcases these otherworldly images but also delves into the fascinating science of bees, their history and their crucial role in our ecosystem.
In this Q&A, we get an insider's look at Craig's creative process and the important messages he hopes to convey through his work.
About Bee Vision
Q: How does color factor into bee vision, and how does it differ from human color perception?
A: I think it makes sense to start with similarities between bee and human vision! Both humans and bees see the world of color through the use of three types of sensory cells in the eye, each of which is responsive to a specific range of wavelengths (colors). Here, the similarity begins to run out, as only two-thirds of human and bee vision’s range overlaps!
Humans can see blue through red, but bees are generally understood to see ultraviolet through green. Add to that the fact that bees see through thousands of ommatidia (individual eye structures composing their compound eyes), which some people liken to looking through a stack of straws.
They also have bonus upward-pointed eyes used for orientation, which are called ocelli. Beyond that, their field of view is quite wide, and they can use polarized light to further refine their sensing ability, which is hard for humans to imagine.
Q: In what ways does the structure of a bee’s eyes contribute to its distinctive way of perceiving the world?
A: Setting aside the clear color difference in the ability to see ultraviolet, which reveals bullseyes and other patterns secret to humans, bees are understood to have a lower visual acuity than humans, and that is reflected in the displays flowers put on to lure them.
While much is made of “nectar guides,” the patterns revealed with reflected ultraviolet, there is a huge importance to the flower standing out from its background, which is the first signal for a bee to investigate. The nectar guides help the bee home in on the important parts once it’s close, but it won’t get close without the contrast, which means red flowers and green flowers are generally less attractive to bees (who prefer purple to blue flowers) and probably have a stronger ability to lure ants, moths, birds or other pollinators.
Q: Are there specific patterns or shapes that bees prioritize when seeking out pollination sources?
A: Certainly! Most remarkable are the nectar guides I mentioned in the previous answer. These most often take the form of a bullseye centered on the reproductive anatomy of a flower. In certain species, it is easy to get an idea of what the bees are picking up on - take for example Rudbeckia, Coreopsis tinctoria and certain cultivars of sunflowers, which all exhibit a dark or discolored ring in the middle of the flower.
In other members of these same groups, that bullseye pattern is nearly hidden, except when viewed in reflected ultraviolet, which is how bees key into it. My work with UVIVF requires absorption to produce fluorescence, so usually these nectar guides come through as a different color or different intensity of fluorescence, giving a degree of insight into how the pattern might appear in reflected-UV.
Q: Are there any controversies surrounding the scientific understanding of bee vision?
A: I think the biggest controversy that surrounds bee vision is the struggle to imagine exactly how bees and other insects actually perceive the light. While we know what colors/wavelengths they see (some other photographers such as Dr. Klaus Schmitt specialize in capturing light corresponding to bee and butterfly vision), other factors are complicating it, such as the compound eyes, polarized light and how the vision center of a bee actually deals with the information it receives.
We understand that to some degree human vision is dependent on pattern recognition and may essentially autocomplete a pattern or see something that isn’t there because it resembles something we expect to see. We also could think about bee vision from a perspective not just of what they see, but how they feel about it or how it affects their behavior.
About Craig's Book
Q: Does the book focus on particular bee species, and does the exploration vary across different bee species?
A: The book has more content relating to honeybees than other types, but there is information about more than just honeybees. One of the reasons for this is that there is just vastly more research that has been done on honeybees because they’ve been important for human civilization for so incredibly long.
This totally makes sense when you consider the idea of honeybees less as wild insects and more as livestock, since that’s more accurately the relationship modern humans have with them! A lot of the same traits apply broadly across bee species, though there are plenty of exceptions known and surely even more yet to be found out.
Q: Were there any hurdles you encountered while creating this book, whether in the photography or research phases?
A: There were challenges of a few different types. For the years I have been doing UVIVF, I didn’t have any specific plan, but I knew I wanted to maximize quantity and quality, and I worked very hard over the years to improve my technique and develop new hardware to ensure I could produce photos at the quality I desire. I kept hitting dead ends as far as light sources and optical filters, and it was a long road to where I am with my completely custom-designed light sources, and I am still not done!
Since some of the photos that went into the book were shot on location, I had to lean into the techniques I had developed through the years. Whether it was fighting a breeze in a studio or inventing a new process to shoot environmental scenes, it was very challenging, and I couldn’t have done it without the struggles of the preceding years. Add to that taking all my equipment 7000 miles and driving across a country to shoot in the field or in a blacked-out enclosure in a bee suit!
As far as research, I have always struggled with the narrative that my photos explicitly depict bee-vision. It’s a beautiful idea, and I didn’t want to give it up entirely, so I worked hard to find ways to link my UVIVF work and bee vision, which meant reading many research papers, taking notes and carefully choosing words to convey exactly the idea I wanted to describe what the UVIVF is and how it relates to bee vision.
Q: What message do you hope readers take away from your book and your overall research?
A: Through both the book itself, and from my photography in general, I really hope to engage more people in thinking about nature and the way humanity chooses to interact with it. Living in cities as we do, often distanced from plants, insects, animals, etc, it becomes easy to forget how much is going on aside from our human lives, and as a result, begin to dismiss the importance of that other life.
Too much disregard for it is a great threat to the human species, whether it means harming bees, which we depend on to pollinate crops, or the vast environmental systems relying on the health of ecosystems to keep the climate functioning as we both expect and need it to. I think seeing the beauty of nature through my work may help people become more attuned to this way of thinking and ultimately impact the quality and actual persistence of human life.
Comments