Getting older on a wing and a prayer

I've heard it said that many animals share the same number of heartbeats in a lifetime (one billion?), but new research suggests that a honeybee's life is measured in wingbeats.

Dr Andy Higginson of the University of Nottingham (UK) has discovered that as bees age and their wings deteriorate, they become less choosy in the flowers they visit. He has therefore put forward a foraging model suggesting that bees have a finite number of wing beats in their lives.