The study demonstrates that bumblebees can learn a complex two-step puzzle box task through social learning, even though they fail to do so independently. The puzzle box required bees to push a blue tab out of the way of a red tab, which then revealed a reward. This task was challenging because the first step was unrewarded, and bees needed to form a lasting association between the initial action and the final reward without any direct link to a reward. Despite this, 5 out of 15 naive observers successfully acquired the complete behavior from trained demonstrators. The study also found that observers who followed demonstrators closely during the key actions were more likely to learn the behavior. These findings suggest that bumblebees can acquire behaviors too complex for individual trial and error, challenging the notion that such complex behaviors are uniquely human. The ability to socially learn complex behaviors may be a key difference between humans and other animals, contributing to human cumulative culture.The study demonstrates that bumblebees can learn a complex two-step puzzle box task through social learning, even though they fail to do so independently. The puzzle box required bees to push a blue tab out of the way of a red tab, which then revealed a reward. This task was challenging because the first step was unrewarded, and bees needed to form a lasting association between the initial action and the final reward without any direct link to a reward. Despite this, 5 out of 15 naive observers successfully acquired the complete behavior from trained demonstrators. The study also found that observers who followed demonstrators closely during the key actions were more likely to learn the behavior. These findings suggest that bumblebees can acquire behaviors too complex for individual trial and error, challenging the notion that such complex behaviors are uniquely human. The ability to socially learn complex behaviors may be a key difference between humans and other animals, contributing to human cumulative culture.