To the honeybees in your neighborhood, your face may seem familiar. Did you know these tiny, buzzing creatures can remember what you look like?

The tiny bee brain has only a million neurons. Compared to a human, that’s barely any! But that doesn’t mean bees aren’t bright. God equipped them with a strong sense of smell. They can see colors. They can remember patterns. These traits help them find food. Bees even know when something is symmetrical—the same on both sides. They recognize faces the same way we do. They see eyes, eyebrows, noses, and lips. Then their brains “glue” the whole picture together.

How do we know this? Scientists performed a test in 2010. They set up pictures of human faces. They put bowls water in front of them. Some bowls contained sugar water. Others contained plain water. Soon the bees could tell the differences between the faces with sugar water and the faces with plain water. But what if a bee sees a person from the side instead of the front? Scientists in Australia wondered. In another sugar water test, they taught bees to recognize faces from different angles.

Bees don’t recognize human faces unless someone teaches them to. And even then, bees probably see people as a strange kind of flower. But could scientists put the bees’ ability to good use?

Scientists hoped to use their discovery on computers. Could they build technology that recognized faces like bees do? Maybe then computers could help identify criminals. Facial recognition technology has sillier uses too. Some people use it to pick out their new pets. The computer scans a person’s image. Then it chooses the pet that looks most like the person! Soon bees may not be the only ones who know what you look like. The computer might too!