Bee Learning and Communication - Color Memory

Color Memory

After this work on color preferences, Menzel extended his experiments to study memory in honey bee color vision. He wanted to know how many trials were necessary for honey bees to reliably choose a previously rewarded color when presented with several choices for potential rewards and how long honey bees could retain information about which color would be rewarded.

To test these questions, Menzel performed a variety of experiments. First, he presented individual bees with a sugar reward on a colored background for just a single trial. He then kept these bees in small cages for several days without any further trials. After a few days, he presented each bee with several dishes each on a different colored background at once. One of the colors was the same as that used during the initial trial. The others were novel, unrewarded colors. Amazingly, after just one trial and several days without any exposure to the rewarded color, bees correctly chose to explore the color used in the first trial more than fifty-percent of the time.

Menzel then repeated this experiment with another group of bees, keeping all factors the same except that in the second round of testing he gave the bees three initial trials with the rewarded color instead of just one. After several days in confinement when the bees were presented with a choice of colors just as in the first experiment, they virtually always chose the color that had been used during the first three trials.

This ability to retain information about color-linked rewards over a period of several days and after only minimal exposure to the colored background indicates the great strength of honeybees memory with respect to color vision.