The Early Bee Gets the Best Meal

摘要

Honeybees are better at learning new odours in the morning and the early-rising bee catches the best flower and the best meal, a new study has found. German researchers, who looked at more than 1,000 bees for their study, said the early brain power might have evolved to help the insects sniff out flowering plants and forage for nectar more efficiently. Earlier research has shown that flowers accumulate their nectar during the morning, so this would be the period during which learning many new odourswould be most useful to the bees. But in the latest study, the scientists captured over 1,000 forager honeybees (Apis mellifera) and trained them in groups at different times of the day to associate a new odour with a food reward, the BBC reported. The team, led by Professor Giovanni Galizia from the University of Konstanz in Germany, could then test each bee to see if it responded correctly to the odour.