LEARNING IN HONEYBEES (APIS-MELLIFERA) AS A FUNCTION OF SUCROSE CONCENTRATION - ANALYSIS OF THE RETROSPECTIVE EFFECT

Foraging honeybees (Apis mellifera), trained with 2 successively presented targets labeled with different odors, one target baited with a small drop of 50% sucrose solution and the other baited with a small drop of 20% sucrose solution, soon come to respond more promptly on 50% than on 20% trials (prospective effect) and more promptly after 20% than after 50% trials (retrospective effect), with a pronounced interaction between the two effects. In training with unlabeled targets, the retrospective effect is absent, which argues against postingestive inhibition as an explanation, but the effect appears precipitously, along with the prospective effect and the interaction, when odor labels are introduced (Experiment 1). Three subsequent experiments provided no evidence for an associative explanation of the retrospective effect in terms of discrimination supported by adaptation-based differential reinforcement.