Experimental access to associative learning in honeybees

Honey bees (Apis mellifera L) are a well known model for behavioral studies of learning and memory (Opfinger, 1931; Lindauer, 1963; von Frisch, 1967; Gould, 1984; Menzel, 1990). Individual bees have to remember several parameters regarding effective food sites, such as their location, color, odor and shape. As social insects bees are well suited for an investigation of the mechanisms underlying memory formation. Despite their high learning capabilities, insect brains also provide access to studies at a cellular level (Menzel et al, 1991). Therefore, to investigate learn ling and information processing in the bee brain, different methods are applied, such as studies on the behavior of free-flying bees (Lindauer, 1963; von Frisch, 1967; Menzel et al, 1974; Gould, 1984; Bitterman, 1988; Menzel, 1990; Greggers and Menzel, 1993) and on the learning behavior of restrained bees (Erber and Schildberger, 1980; Bitterman et al, 1983; Menzel and Bitterman, 1983; Smith, 1991; Smith et al, 1991; Menzel et al, 1993). Furthermore, electrophysiological studies are carried out, which allow the application of simple learning paradigms during extracellular recordings (Rehder, 1987; Smith and Menzel, Summary – The pioneering work on the behavior and physiology of bees provides a fundamental framework on