How do you learn? Most of us learn something every day, even if we don’t realize it. We might learn how to fix our faucet, where the nearest store is, or even just a fun fact about honeybees from an article we found online. But have you ever wondered what happens “under the hood,” so to speak? What is the actual process of associating X with Y, and what does that mean? That’s what researchers at Arizona State University set out to study last May in the humble honeybee [1].
Bees Can Learn (a Lot)
For this study, published in Learning and Memory, bees were shown to learn complex associations. They could learn that an odor signified a reward, a behavior known as an excitatory response. Furthermore, they could even learn an inhibitory response, where an odor indicated no reward [2]. While the results for simple learning tasks were rather uniform, as the complexity of the learning increased, distinct response types began to emerge. For example, in one experiment, both Odors A and B were trained to be excitatory—if the bee smelled Odor A or Odor B, it learned that a reward would follow. By contrast, inhibition was associated with Odor X, meaning that if the bee smelled X, no reward would follow. The final odor, Y, had no association whatsoever. At the end of the training, the bees were tested with combinations of Odor B paired with Odors X and Y. Most bees showed no response to BX but still responded to BY. This was because those bees knew that Odor X would take away the reward associated with Odor B. In other words, the response to Odor B was inhibited by Odor X.
However, when this experiment was performed again years later, while the trend held true, the exact proportion of bees that responded to BX changed significantly. Since the types of responses were the same across multiple years of testing, this means all the bees were learning, but they processed the information differently from their peers. This led researchers to question: Why were there such stark differences between individual bees when they were all raised and tested under the same conditions?
Individual Differences Influence Learning
One common misconception about honeybees is that all the workers in a hive are clones of one another. This is because all workers are descended from one queen. However, this idea fails to account for the other side of the equation: the males. One queen will mate with males from other hives, all of whom have their own genetic makeup. This creates an interesting situation where, while still very closely related, there are up to twenty distinct lineages within one hive [3]. If the bees can form definitive groups with different learning styles in the exact same conditions, that means that the only plausible explanation is that their learning style must be influenced by their genetics.
Why This Matters
The information in this study can help us better understand the process of learning in both bees and humans. In the short term, a better understanding of the genetic differences in a hive can help us control for learning in future studies. But in the longer term, we can use this information to help teach humans as well. Currently, many of our methods of learning assessment use a one-size-fits-all philosophy: if you’re a bad test taker, you’re out of luck. But just like how bees apply the same information differently, so, too, do people [4]. That’s why there has been a recent push to change the old philosophy, and instead design classrooms to account for people’s different interests and abilities. The learning experience is a complicated one, and this study provides one piece of the puzzle to show just how important the individual is in learning.
References
[1] Mahoney, S., Hosler, J., & Smith, B. H. (2024). Reinforcement expectation in the honeybee (Apis mellifera): Can downshifts in reinforcement show conditioned inhibition? Learning & Memory, 31(5), a053915. https://doi.org/10.1101/lm.053915.124
[2] Page Jr., R. E., Laidlaw Jr., H. H., & Erickson Jr., E. H. (1985). Closed Population Honeybee Breeding 4. The Distribution of Sex Alleles with Top Crossing. Journal of Apicultural Research, 24(1), 38–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/00218839.1985.11100646
[3] Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9(3), 105–119. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6053.2009.01038.x
[4] Rescorla, R. A. (1969). Pavlovian conditioned inhibition. Psychological Bulletin, 72(2), 77–94. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0027760
Shawn Mahoney is a PhD student in Animal Behavior at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. His research focuses on the intersection between neuroscience and behavior, using honeybees as a model to study the neural pathways from stimulus to response. Outside of his research, Shawn is passionate about science communication and education, and he enjoys writing and editing papers whenever possible.
[Edited by Isabelle McDonald-Gilmartin and Nicole Rodrigues]