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Naturwissenschaften

Title:		Honeybees learn floral odors while receiving nectar from foragers within the hive
Author(s):		Farina WM; Gruter C; Acosta L; Mc Cabe S;
Address:		"Departamento de Biodiversidad y Biologia Experimental, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Grupo de Estudio de Insectos Sociales, IFIBYNE-CONICET, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina. walter@fbmc.fcen.uba.ar"
Journal Title:		Naturwissenschaften
Year:		2007
Volume:		20061005
Issue:		1
Page Number:		55 - 60
DOI:		10.1007/s00114-006-0157-3
ISSN/ISBN:		0028-1042 (Print) 0028-1042 (Linking)
Abstract:		"Recent studies showed that nectar odors brought back by honeybee foragers can be learned associatively inside the hive. In the present study, we focused on the learning abilities of bees, which directly interact via trophallaxis with the incoming nectar foragers: the workers that perform nectar-receiving tasks inside the hive. Workers that have received food directly from foragers coming back from a feeder offering either unscented or scented sugar solution [phenylacetaldehyde (PHE) or nonanal diluted] were captured from two observational hives, and their olfactory memories were tested using the proboscis extension response paradigm. Bees that have received scented solution from incoming foragers showed significantly increased response frequencies for the corresponding solution odor in comparison with those that have received unscented solution. No differences in the response frequencies were found between food odors and colonies. The results indicate that first-order receivers learn via trophallaxis the association between the scent and the sugar solution transferred by incoming foragers. The implications of these results should be considered at three levels: the operational cohesion of bees involved in foraging-related tasks, the information propagation inside the hive related to the floral type exploited, and the putative effect of these memories on future preferences for resources"
Keywords:		Animal Feed Animals Bees/*physiology *Feeding Behavior *Flowers *Odorants Smell/*physiology Social Behavior;
Notes:		"MedlineFarina, Walter M Gruter, Christoph Acosta, Luis Mc Cabe, Sofia eng Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Germany 2006/10/06 Naturwissenschaften. 2007 Jan; 94(1):55-60. doi: 10.1007/s00114-006-0157-3. Epub 2006 Oct 5"