HONEYBEES USE OF SPATIAL PARAMETERS FOR FLOWER DISCRIMINATION

Early as well as recent behavioral studies on the bee's use of spatial cues for recognizing the food source are reviewed. The spatial parame ters considered are those that natural flowers display, e.g., contrast , spatial frequency, geometry, symmetry, size, depth, edges, orientati on of contours, and position in the visual field. It is concluded that bees use each of these parameters for learning and recognizing the fo od source. Intensity contrast as well as color contrast are involved i n spatial vision. However, spatial cues extracted from image motion ar e processed by a color-blind system. Although the results reviewed her e have been obtained using artificial food sources, it is argued that the spatial parameters under consideration are actually used by the be e for discriminating among natural flowers.