DISCRIMINATION BETWEEN LEARNED COLORS AGAINST A NEW BACKGROUND AND IN A NEW PLACE IN HONEYBEES, APIS MELLIFERA (HYMENOPTERA, APIDAE)

In field experiments, honeybees learned to discriminate between rewarded and unrewarded feeders differing in color. After learning, familiar feeders were presented with another background or the place of presentation was shifted a few meters away. Both innovations led to decreasing the average percentage of correct choices. This decrease is considered to be evidence of "contextual isolation". The isolation was partial, because the discrimination of learned colors partially remained under new conditions. Most likely, this is the first example of partial contextual isolation. Significant individual differences were revealed. Some individuals demonstrated spontaneous color preferenda while the others did not. Four bees of 34 were unable to learn a rewarded color during 30-40 visits.