Comparative analysis of learning in honeybees

Abstract

The performance of free-flying and harnessed honeybees has been studied in a variety of experiments patterned after those in which leaming in vertebrates has been studied-among them experiments on amount, quality, and probability of reward; on compound conditioning and discrimination; and on spatialleaming and memory. Despite the remoteness ofthe evolutionary relationship and the vast differences in brain size and structure, the results for honeybees are strikingly similar to those for vertebrates in many respects and different in only a few. The extent to which phenomena of learning common to honeybees and vertebrates can be understood in terms of common functional principles and mechanisms remains to be determined. None of the differences in the results for honeybees and vertebrates points unmistakably to a difference in their leaming.

Blocking in landmark-based search in honeybees

“…However, both effects have been reported in honeybees within other paradigms. Overshadowing in honeybees has been extensively investigated by Couvillon, Bitterman, and colleagues (e.g., Couvillon & Bitterman, 1989;Couvillon, Klosterhalfen, & Bitterman, 1983;Couvillon,Mateo, & Bitterman, 1996; for a review, see Bitterman, 1996). Blocking effects in honeybees have been investigated within two paradigms: conditioned proboscis extension and foraging for sugar water.…”

Successive Olfactory Reversal Learning in Honeybees

“…The honeybee is a useful model not only because of its fast learning and prolonged memory capabilities but also because it offers an excellent opportunity to study the physiological basis of such capabilities (Menzel 1985;Menzel et al 1993;Menzel and Müller 1996;Menzel and Giurfa 2001). Olfactory conditioning in the honeybee has been extensively studied to this end (Bitterman et al 1983;Smith 1991;Smith and Cobey 1994;Hammer and Menzel 1995;Bitterman 1996;Menzel and Müller 1996;Hammer 1997). In this paradigm, harnessed honeybees are conditioned to olfactory stimuli associated with a reinforcement of sucrose solution (Takeda 1961;Bitterman et al 1983).…”

“…They behave as if they have mastered the abstract concept of alternation or of regular sequence. Bitterman (1975) has argued that the speed with which animals of a given species improve on reversals of this kind seems to be related to differences in "intelligence".…”

Getting to the start line: how bumblebees and honeybees are visually guided towards their first floral contact

“…That bees are well designed to exploit floral resources is so self-evident that at first glance it may seem as if there is nothing to explain. Indeed, much of the research on foraging behaviour concerns what bees do, and how they do it, after they have had their first rewarded experience on flowers (see reviews by Gould, 1990;Bitterman, 1996;Chittka and Thomson, 2001;Menzel, 2001;Raine et al, 2006;Benard et al, 2006;Giurfa, 2007;Dukas, 2008;Goulson, 2010;Avarguès-Weber et al, 2011;Dyer, 2012). There is comparatively less research on what they do before: when workers leave their colony for the first time, having never yet encountered a flower, how do they identify candidate food sources?…”