Bee’s, Honey, and Humans
A close relationship has been established between honeyguide bird’s species and humans, as witnessed in the woodlands of Mozambique. This relationship is due to the gained adaptations over the centuries in humans and the birds and has led them to work together. The relationship is established whereby the honeyguide bird’s lead honey-hunters towards bee hives upon hearing a specific sound from the honey-hunters, and producing a sound in response to the honey-hunters. It is believed that these birds do so with accuracy.
Experiments were performed by scientists to test the practice validity and they were successful. According to the experiments, these birds could only lead honey-hunters to bee nests upon hearing a specific sound only. Also, the rate of success in this practice has been fifty-four percent. However, wrong sounds have been seen to reduce the success rate to only sixteen percent. Claire Spottiswoode reveals how she personally was able to locate a bee’s nest with the help of the honeyguide birds when the right noise was made by her colleague. This was only after failing to be successful when she tried doing it without any help at first.
Spottiswoode further added that the real scientific explanation behind this unique bee feature cannot be explained but has something to do with honeyguide bird's advanced sense of smell. Unfortunately, at times the bee nests are hard to reach by the birds due to their location. To counter this, the Yao people from this region possess tools and use smoke to reach the bee’s nest. Richard Wrangham describes this as the world’s most complex bird-mammal relationship. Additionally, according to Spottiswoode and Yale’s Brian, people in Tanzania utilize different sounds to the honeyguides, and they locate bee nests successfully
