Meeting Abstract
We trained bees to push a cap to uncover a hidden food source. The experiment sought to gauge the effect of experience based on the number of trials as well as the effect of punishment through shock. Our study revealed that landing errors are reduced by experience and by the administration of punishment. Landing on an incorrect target can be defined as landing on the target not used in training. Two groups of 16 randomly selected bees received 12 training trials, one group received shock punishment for failing to push the target covering the sucrose reward while the other group did not. After the first 6 trials, we performed a test trial with each bee by relocating the trained target and covering the sucrose reward with the opposite target to observe which target the bee would push. Trials 7-12 were performed exactly as trials 1-6. After trial 12, each bee received 4 test trials, for a total of 5 test trials. Results from test trial 1 showed that 6 of 16 bees in the non-punishment group pushed the original trained target after it was moved from the reward to the periphery of the platform. While 9 incorrectly pushed the original target type, rather than the target over the reward. Consequently, 8 of 16 bees in the punishment group mistakenly identified the original target type in test trial 1, while 16 of 16 bees in each of the last 4 trials successfully identified the sucrose reward under the opposite target with which they were trained. This research was supported by NSF REU grant 1560389 and NSF PIRE grant 1545803 and performed at Skala Kalloni Greece.
