Wondering if bees have compound eyes? Bees have two compound eyes and 3 simple eyes or ocelli. This means bees have 5 eyes. In a worker bee, each compound eye has 6900 facets – each facet is a small eye, meaning that bees really have 13803 eyes.
What Is a Bee Compound Eye?
A bee compound eye is a collection of small eyes forming a dome shape. Each facet of the bee compound eye functions as a stand-alone unit called an ommatidium.
How Does a Bee Compound Eye Work?The bee’s compound eyes, working in conjunction with the simple eyes, allow the bee to fly great distances and return home accurately using the compound eyes and complex trigonometric navigation.
How do Bee Compound Eyes Help in Decision-Making?
A bee cannot afford to carry a big brain around, as it has to fly efficiently. A small compact brain, twinned with a sophisticated set of compound eyes allows the bee to make decisions efficiently.
Next time you eat a strawberry, or a sweet cherry, remember, if bees did not have compound eyes, they would not be able to find the flowers and pollinate them, and we would not enjoy these fruit as they would not exist.