The humble bumblebee may have a brain the size of a pinhead, but it's no fool when it comes to route planning. British researchers have shown that bumblebees hone their routes from flower to flower to save both time and energy.  

The researchers tagged the bees, trained them to feed on artificial flowers and used radar to track their movements.

They found that the bees perfected both the order in which they visited the feeding platforms and the routes between them.

It's a complex calculation that mathematicians call the 'travelling salesman problem': planning a route between base and several other destinations. 

The team say understanding how bees solve complex problems may help the development of artificial intelligence.

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