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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 3, 2026

Tactile Conditioning And Movement Analysis Of Antennal Sampling Strategies In Honey Bees Apis mellifera L.

Tactile Conditioning And Movement Analysis Of Antennal Sampling Strategies In Honey Bees Apis mellifera L.

Published on: December 12, 2012

Honeybees use the skyline in orientation.

William F Towne¹, Antoinette E Ritrovato², Antonina Esposto²

¹Department of Biology, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, PA 19529, USA towne@kutztown.edu.

The Journal of Experimental Biology

|April 29, 2017

Summary

Honeybees use the skyline for navigation. Experiments showed that honeybees (Apis mellifera) orient their homing flights using the skyline, even without celestial cues.

Keywords:

Apis mellifera Navigation Panorama View-based navigation

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Area of Science:

Animal behavior
Navigation
Sensory ecology

Background:

View-based navigation relies on comparing learned and current landscape views.
The skyline, a distant and stable landscape feature, is potentially useful for navigation.
While ants use skylines, their use by flying insects like honeybees remains unconfirmed.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate whether honeybees use the skyline for orientation.
To determine if honeybees can navigate using only skyline cues.

Main Methods:

Honeybees were trained to a feeder surrounded by an artificial skyline replica.
Departure directions towards the nest were recorded using overhead video cameras.
Experiments were conducted under overcast skies to exclude celestial navigation cues.

Main Results:

When the artificial skyline was rotated, the bees' departure directions rotated correspondingly.
This demonstrates that honeybees oriented their flights using the artificial skyline alone.
Celestial cues were eliminated, isolating the skyline as the sole orientation factor.

Conclusions:

Honeybees demonstrably use the skyline for orientation during homing flights.
Findings suggest the skyline's importance in long-range homing for honeybees.
Further research is needed on altitude, ultraviolet light, and resolution of skyline features.