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Related Experiment Videos

Delayed alternation in honeybees (Apis mellifera).

P A Couvillon1, T P Ferreira, M E Bitterman

  • 1Békésy Laboratory of Neurobiology, University of Hawaii, Honolulu 96822, USA.

Journal of Comparative Psychology (Washington, D.C. : 1983)
|May 9, 2003
PubMed
Summary

Honeybees (Apis mellifera) demonstrated learned control using short-term memory. Bees successfully learned to either repeat or change their choice based on recent rewards, showing cognitive flexibility.

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Area of Science:

  • Animal Cognition
  • Behavioral Ecology
  • Neuroethology

Background:

  • Previous studies failed to demonstrate learned control of honeybee performance by short-term memory.
  • Understanding insect learning mechanisms is crucial for comparative cognition studies.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate learned control of honeybee (Apis mellifera) performance using an improved training technique.
  • To determine if honeybees utilize short-term memory for task-specific choices.

Main Methods:

  • Honeybees were trained to choose between two colors based on a sample.
  • Tasks involved either perseveration (choosing the same color as the sample) or alternation (choosing a different color).
  • An improved training technique was employed to assess learned control.

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Main Results:

  • Honeybees successfully learned to perform both perseveration and alternation tasks.
  • The equal difficulty of both tasks suggests the sample's primary role was discriminative, not associative.
  • Bees remembered and appropriately used information about the immediately preceding reward experience on each trial.

Conclusions:

  • Honeybees exhibit learned control of performance mediated by short-term memory.
  • These findings suggest fundamental similarities in learning processes between vertebrates and honeybees.
  • The study extends the understanding of cognitive abilities in insects.