Social Learning in Bumblebees (Bombus impatiens): Worker Bumblebees Learn to Manipulate and Forage at Artificial Flowers by Observation and Communication within the Colony
Social learning occurs when one individual learns from another, mainly conspecific, often by observation, imitation, or communication. Using artificial flowers, we studied social learning by allowing test bumblebees to (a) see dead bumblebees arranged in foraging positions or (b) watch live bumblebees actually foraging or (c) communicate with nestmates within their colony without having seen foraging. Artificial flowers made from 1.5？mL microcentrifuge tubes with closed caps were inserted through the centres of blue 7？cm plastic discs as optical signals through which the bees could not forage. The reinforcer reward syrup was accessible only through holes in the sides of the tubes beneath the blue discs. Two colonies (A and B) were used in tandem along with control (C and D) colonies. No bee that was not exposed (i.e., from the control colonies (C and D)) to social learning discovered the access holes. Inside colony B, we imprisoned a group of bees that were prevented from seeing or watching. Bees that saw dead bumblebees in foraging positions, those that watched nest-mates foraging, and those that had only in-hive communication with successful foragers all foraged successfully. The means of in-hive communication are not understood and warrant intense investigation. 1. Introduction Social learning is defined by ethologists as any learning from conspecifics [1] (but we note that social learning between species is known) and mostly involves observation, imitation by observing and replicating another’s behavior, and modeling to transmit the learned behaviour from one individual to others [2]. Social learning through individuals’ interactions with other animals or their products encompasses attention, memory, and motivation; social theory calls social learning a bridge between behaviourism (i.e., learning based upon behaviour that is acquired through conditioning which occurs through interaction with the environment) and cognitive learning (i.e., learning by using reason, intuition, and perception) [3–6]. Research on social learning has focused largely on vertebrates [7, 8]. However, a growing number of researchers have shown recently that bees and other small brained animals can also learn through acquisition of information by social transmission [9–12]. Nonetheless, the possibility that social learning might extend to practical knowledge (skills), in addition to simple declarative knowledge (facts), remains mostly untested in invertebrates [9]. Insects, especially eusocial bees, show remarkably complex learning abilities [11, 13–15], and social information
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