Why can bumblebees see Ultraviolet (UV) radiation?

Question

Just curious why bumblebees can see at this higher frequency range. What advantage does this give them?
What exactly do they see that is different?

(Would love to see some UV pictures of flowers, fauna, etc)

Thanks for any ideas

Answer 1

they just see another color that we don't see

they can do this because they have an additional kind of "cone" in their eyes which is a color receptive body in the eye

just imagine that you are looking at a rainbow, if you are a bee, you see approximately the same rainbow as I would, but it keeps going past the violet with a couple more colors (which we can't describe because we can't see)

remember, there are lots of electro-magnetic radiation that we can't see, but its still there and we can use if for radio or whatever

us animals can only see a small range of the spectrum (but some animals see more than others) except maybe for the character "jordy" on star-trek who has a synthetic device instead of eyes and can see a huge range of the spectrum

Answer 2

The light sensors in our eyes contain chemicals that are activated by lightwaves. This produces a tiny current that triggers a nerve cell to fire, and that is how the sensation of light comes about. But the chemical inside the light sensitive cell has only a certain range of wavelengths that it can respond to.

These chemicals are called dyes, and some dyes respond to UV instead of visible light. Bees and other insects can see UV light because their light sensitive cells contain these dyes. Many flowers have markings that are invisible to the human eye. Bees use these special markings to navigate to the flowers and get food.

Answer 3

You can simulate UV pictures... just use Moonlight...

Bees vision lets them see the flowers they need to get more nectar.