Can Bees See or Are They Blind?

Not at all, bees are definitely not blind.

are bees blind

Bees actually have 5 eyes; 3 simple eyes called ocelli, and 2 compound eyes.

The compound eyes are made of lots of small, repeating eye parts called ommatidia. About 150 ommatidia in each compound eye specializes in seeing patterns.

This allows bees to detect polarized light, something human eyes cannot do.The advantage of the compound eye is its ability to detect movement.

Honey bees detect moving flowers better than stationary ones. In other words, their eye is better adapted for movement perception than for form perception.

Although honey bees perceive a fairly broad color range, they can only differentiate between six major categories of color, including yellow, blue-green, blue, violet, ultraviolet, and also a color known as “bee’s purple,” a mixture of yellow and ultraviolet.

Bees can not see red. Differentiation is not equally good throughout the range and is best in the blue-green, violet, and bee’s purple colors.