Movement learning of free flying honeybees

Summary

Free flying honeybees were conditioned to moving black and white stripe patterns. Bees learn rapidly to distinguish the direction of movement in the vertical and horizontal plane.

After being trained to a moving pattern bees do not discriminate the moving alternative from a stationary one. There is no significant velocity discrimination for patterns moving in the same direction.

For vertical movements there are clear asymmetries in the spontaneous choice preference and in the learning curves for patterns moving upward or downward.

After bees are trained to a stationary pattern they can discriminate it from an upward moving alternative. Learning curves involving movement are generally biphasic, suggesting different adaptive systems depending on the number of rewards.

The flight pattern of bees which are trained to movement changes during the process of learning. At the beginning of the learning procedure bees reveal an optokinetic response to the moving patterns, this response is strongly reduced after a number of rewards on a moving pattern.