Learning patterns in Honey bees |
|
Frequently required to return to the nest site, a honey bee must be able to identify surrounding landmarks and successfully navigate across long distances to return to the colony. As a young bee, self-training flights familiarise the honey bee with the defining features of the landscape surrounding the nest. The relative position of the sun to these landmarks is also learned and used as a type of mental compass. Though there is much debate regarding the full extent of spatial memory in honey bees, it is often found that most bees are capable of recalling the apparent size and general bearings of certain well-visited landmarks and can return to these sites (Menzel, 1993).
Commonly supported is the local rule concept, which describes that navigation in bees in guided by a series of independent memories that are able to be pieced like a chain to move from one place to another (Dyer, 1998; Wehner & Menzel, 1990) Though highly disputed, it is commonly believed that honey bees are not capable of a cognitive map of spatial recollections, but rather are aware of basic shape and direction of commonly visited sites, and use a combination of olfactory and UV senses to navigate (Cartwright et al, 1983) . |