Bee reverse-learning behavior and intra-colony differences: Simulations based on behavioral experiments reveal benefits of diversity

Abstract Foraging bees use color cues to help identify rewarding from unrewarding flowers. As environmental conditions change, bees may require behavioral flexibility to reverse their learnt preferences. Learning to discriminate perceptually similar colors takes bees a long time, and thus potentially poses a difficult task to reverse-learn. We trained free-flying honeybees to learn a fine color discrimination task that could only be resolved (with about 70% accuracy) following extended differential conditioning. The bees were then tested for their ability to reverse-learn this visual problem. Subsequent analyses potentially identified individual behavioral differences that could be broadly …