The existence and extent of spatial working memory ability in honeybees

Abstract

Honeybees foraged from six locations, each of which was baited with sugar solution prior to each experimental trial. Under a variety of conditions, bees exhibited a small but reliable tendency to avoid revisits to locations that they had visited earlier during the experimental trial. These results replicate those of Brown and Demas (1994), who concluded that bees use working memory to discriminate previously visited locations from those not yet visited. The present experiments included procedures that allowed alternatives to this explanation to be more completely rifled out. The extent of spatial working memory performance exhibited by honeybees in these experiments appears to be limited by a process other than working memory capacity, perhaps the ability of bees to discriminate among several locations in close proximity to one another.