Visual scanning in the honey bee

Summary

During shape discrimination experiments bees are seen to fly slowly around in front of a shape before landing. The significance of this behaviour was investigated by recording flight paths (Figs. 1, 5) and landing patterns during choice experiments. The analysis consisted of two steps.

• 1. To show that changing the shape changes the flight path of the bee in a related way (Figs. 2, 3):

• a. the overall pattern of flight traces out the form of the shape,

• b. the bee tends to fly to novel areas of a shape directly,

• c. the bee spends an increased amount of time flying directly in front of novel areas.

• 2. To show that different flight paths to the same shape are reliably associated with different frequencies of choosing the shape. Flight paths were divided into categories and it was demonstrated that the bees frequency of landing is related to the area of the shape it flies across, bees encountering novel areas having an altered frequency of landing (Table 1). This change results from a changed frequency in the novel area itself coupled with a tendency to fly away from the shape directly from these changed areas rather than going on to investigate other parts of the shape (Fig. 4).

In addition it was noted that the entrance hole is an important locus, overall most flights passing to this region wherever they begin and many landings being recorded here.

As bees fly to novel areas of a shape directly and the subsequent flight in front of them affects the choice frequency, the flight may be regarded as a visual exploration or “scanning” of the shape and one part of a sequence of behaviours in which assessment of shape similarity is made. It is discussed how, for different shapes, different parts of this sequence may be of different importance in determining the overall choice frequency.