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