Social Learning in Bumblebees (Bombus impatiens): Worker Bumblebees Learn to Manipulate and Forage at Artificial Flowers by Observation and Communication within the Colony

Figure 1

Experiment setup with hive, holding area, flight cage, testing arena, patch of artificial flowers, and mesh tube routes with gates by which the bees were allowed to enter and exit the flight cage. The bees, in training or trained, exited from the hive and could take only one route through the holding area to the testing arena in the main flight cage. The exiting bees were not allowed to use the diagonal route because the gate in it was kept closed. The gates after the holding area were opened and closed to allow single bees to enter the testing arena during testing. The bees returned to their hive from the testing area via the diagonal mesh tube route, the gate of which was opened as necessary. Note that the main flight cage’s end wall, through which the mesh tunnels ran, was a wooden panel so that the bees in the tunnels or in the holding area could not see the flower patch.