The performance of individual honeybees pretrained to forage at a labo
ratory window was studied in three rudimentary analogues of the radial
maze designed for the study of short-term spatial memory in rats. A l
inear arrangement of three targets was used in Experiment 1, a triangu
lar arrangement of three targets in Experiment 2, and a rectangular ar
rangement of four targets in Experiment 3, with reward only for the fi
rst response to each of the targets presented on any given trial. Seve
ral systematic patterns of responding were observed, with no indicatio
n that the choices made by the animals were influenced by memory of ta
rgets recently visited.