| 29/01/2004
Smells remind bees of where they once had a great
meal, according to Australian research.
Dr Judith Reinhard
and team at the
Australian National University
in Canberra found
that when honey bees were reminded of a smell, they could find their
way back to the food using visual clues to guide them.
The
results appear in today's issue of the journal
Nature.
According to Reinhard, this
was the first time researchers had shown honey bees (Apis
mellifera) in the field use smell to recall visual
memories.
"It's just like what happens with humans and
smell," said Reinhard.
"When they smell freshly baked cake,
they can immediately remember what the cake looks like, tastes like,
even though they don't see the cake."
The study had two
phases. In the first phase, the researchers placed feeders in
particular locations 50 metres from the bee hives. The feeders
contained sugar water scented with lemon, rose or almond. The honey
bees learned which scent was where.
In the second phase, the
researchers exposed the bees in the hive to a scent of lemon, rose
or almond, and watched how they behaved. The researchers then placed
empty feeders with no scent in the original positions. |
 |
Honey bees: memories are made of this
(Jeffrey Wilson, RSBS Photography, ANU) |
More
than 80% of bees flew to where they remembered the scent was. Most
bees also circled and landed on the empty feeder, which Reinhard
said indicated they were convinced food must be there.
Bees
navigate by using landmarks along their path. They also use a
special waggle dance to tell other bees how far away food
is.
Researchers are divided about the relative importance of
the waggle dance compared with other ways of finding food, such as
scent and landmarks. Most researchers think the waggle dance is
important but scent is important too, said Reinhard.
Bees
are a great model for studying learning and memory in humans,
Reinhard said. And there are many parallels between the way humans
and bees store and recall memories.
Studying bee learning and
memory is also much easier than studying humans, said
Reinhard.
And with the publication of a draft copy of the
honey gene genome earlier this year, researchers can start looking
for molecules and genes associated with bee memory.
"It makes it much easier to then try and find [these genes] in humans," said
Reinhard.
Lucy Andrew
