(a) Reading abilities

I obtained 12 bumble-bee (Bombus terrestris dalmatinus) colonies, for each and every which includes 29forty pros, off Koppert Physical Assistance (Berkel dentro de Rodenrijs, Holland). All the workers was basically exclusively marked to your thorax with numbered, coloured labels (Opalith tags; Religious Graze Kilogram, Germany). That it acceptance visitors to end up being precisely known in research reading experiments and occupation foraging products.

The fresh bees was basically pre-trained to forage from 20 bicoloured, blue and you will purple, phony herbs into the a lab flight stadium. This new rectangular, bicoloured plants had been made out of one or two halves (each twelve?24 mm): you to definitely reddish (Perspex Red 260) plus the most other bluish (Perspex Blue 727). During the pre-training, most of the bicoloured flowers was basically compensated that have fifty% (w/w) sucrose solution providing in past times colour-naive bees having an equal chance to associate each other colours which have reward (Raine ainsi que al. 2006b). Bees doing no less than five straight foraging bouts on bicoloured herbs was picked getting education. These foragers have been educated really, when you look at the an airline stadium which has had 10 blue (Perspex Blue 727) and you can ten purple (Perspex Red 260) artificial plants (for every single 24?24 mm).