Visual control of honeybee flight.

Abstract

Recent research has uncovered a number of different visual cues which bees use for controlling and stabilising flight. Bees flying through a tunnel maintain equidistance to the flanking walls by balancing the speeds of the images of the two walls. This strategy enables them to negotiate narrow passages or to fly between obstacles. The speed of flight in the tunnel is controlled by holding constant the average image velocity as seen by the two eyes. This mechanism prevents potential collisions by ensuring that the bee slows down when it flies through a narrow passage. Bees landing on a horizontal surface hold constant the image velocity of the surface as they approach it, thus automatically ensuring that flight speed is close to zero at touchdown. The movement-sensitive mechanisms underlying these various behaviours differ qualitatively as well as quantitatively, from those that mediate the well-investigated optomotor response. Flight thus appears to be co-ordinated by a number of visuomotor systems acting in concert.