Randolf Menzel

ArticleOnline nowOpen access 1Yunnan Key Laboratory of Forest Ecosystem Stability and Global Change, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla 666303, Yunnan, China 2Institute for Biology, Neurobiology, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany Publication History: Received April 1, 2025; Revised July 12, 2025; Accepted August 21, 2025; Published online September 24, 2025 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2025.08.055 External LinkAlso available on ScienceDirect...

Abstract Honeybees encode in their waggle dances the vector (distance and direction) of an outbound flight to a food source or a new nest side. Optic flow has been identified as the major source of information in the distance estimation. Additional components of distance estimation were also identified, e.g. the sequence of experienced landmarks. Here we address the question of whether bees also use the landscape memory developed during exploratory orientation flights to estimate distance.

Abstract Learning an olfactory discrimination task leads to heterogeneous results in honeybees with bees performing very well and others at low rates. Here we investigated this behavioral heterogeneity and asked whether it is associated with particular gene expression patterns. Bees were individually conditioned in a sequential conditioning protocol involving several phases of olfactory learning and retention tests.