Retention of long-term memories in different age groups of honeybee (Apis mellifera) workers

摘要

Honeybees can learn food odors inside the nest during food sharing and use this information during flower choice, dance choice or choice of a trophallactic partner. We investigated for how long odors learned inside the hive are retained by bees of different age groups. In our study, bees retrieved food odors for up to 10-11 days. Our results suggest that olfactory information acquired by young bees while performing in-hive duties can be retrieved when performing foraging duties later in life.