Complexity Digest 2005.32 - 13

08-Aug-2005

Social Learning Of Floral Odours Inside The Honeybee Hive, Proc. Biol. Sc. Bookmark and Share

Excerpts: A honeybee hive serves as an information centre in which communication among bees allows the colony to exploit the most profitable resources in a continuously changing environment. The best-studied communication behaviour in this context is the waggle dance performed by returning foragers, which encodes information about the distance and direction to the food source. (...) floral scents transferred within the hive, is also important for recruitment to food sources, as bee recruits are more strongly attracted to odours previously brought back by foragers in both honeybees and bumble-bees. These observations suggested that honeybees learn the odour from successful foragers before leaving the hive. (...)