Floral scents induce recall of navigational and visual memories in honeybees

Abstract

During foraging flights, honeybees learn visual and chemical cues associated with a food source. We investigated whether learned olfactory cues can trigger visual and navigational memories in honeybees that assist them in navigating back to a known food source. In a series of experiments, marked bees were trained to forage at one or more sugar water feeders, placed at different outdoor locations and carrying different scents or colours. We then tested the ability of these bees to recall the locations (or colours) of these food sites and to fly to them, when the training scents were blown into the hive, and the scents and food at the feeders were removed. The results show that (1) bees, trained to a single-scented feeder at a given location, can be induced to fly to the same location by blowing the scent into the hive; (2) bees, trained to two feeders, each placed at a different location and carrying a different scent, can be induced to fly to either location by blowing the appropriate scent into the hive; and (3) bees, trained to two feeders, each decorated with a different colour and carrying a different scent, can be induced to find a feeder of either colour by blowing the appropriate scent into the hive. Thus, familiar scents can trigger navigational and visual memories in experienced bees. Our findings suggest that the odour and taste of the nectar samples that are distributed by successful foragers on returning to the hive, may trigger recall of navigational memories associated with the food site in experienced recruits and, thus, facilitate their navigation back to the site.

Brief predator sound exposure elicits behavioral and neuronal long-term sensitization in the olfactory system of an insect

“…Although cross-modal effects of experience on the behavioral level have been shown in honeybees and crickets by using associative learning paradigms (37)(38)(39), our study shows, in addition, a cross-modal effect of experience on the central nervous level in an insect. The observed behavioral increase in sensitivity across modalities seems to originate at least partially from the interaction in a primary sensory integration center, and similar phenomena have so far only been described in higher-order brain centers in vertebrates (17,18).…”

Waggle dance effect: dancing in autumn reduces the mass loss of a honeybee colony

“…The injection of a compound containing three odorant scents, tricosane, pentacosane and Z-(9)-tricosene, into the hive increased the number of worker bees exiting the hive, presumably foraging. Reinhard et al (Reinhard et al, 2004a;Reinhard et al, 2004b) showed that odors can be a trigger leading honeybees to recall the feeders they have visited. Therefore, dance scent might influence mass change as a result of forages of bees that were activated by dance scent.…”

An inexpensive flying robot design for embodied robotics research

“…Flying insects are capable of agile flight at low speeds, complex obstacle avoidance, vertical take-off and landing, and hovering for long periods at a time. Recent studies with bees show they can estimate flight duration, regulate flight speed, and land using visual processing [1][2][3]. Beyond having the same impressive flying skills as other flying insects, honeybees achieve cognitively sophisticated behaviors despite the very limited size of their brain (approximately 10 6 neurons) [4].…”