> In the March issue of Bee Culture magazine this issue is addressed in detail. It answers all the questions that have come up

I doubt it would answer all the questions, at least not to my satisfaction. I am seldom satisfied with answers, especially short ones. But aside from that -- one question has always intrigued me and that is how long memories last in honey bee's minds.

It seems apparent that they can last for a very long time, such as when a hive remembers their location in spring, after being shut in all winter. But it can be erased almost instantly such as when they swarm. Once they settle in to their new home they seem to forget all about the old one. 

But a more intriguing question is how long they take to learn the location of a hive that has been moved in an apiary situation. If I had ever been a grad student, I would have studied that. My idea was to have a group of hives but only have bees in one of them. 

Then you could swap them around and see which factors bees remember most. Do they memorize the color of the box? Which is more important, the color or the position? How about the size or shape of the box? For example if I change the colors of the boxes but don't move the bees will they go into the wrong box? 

Vice versa, if I move the bees but don't change the colors of any of them or the position of any of them, how long will they be confused-- still returning to the original but now empty hive, and how quickly will they memorize the new position. These questions all hinge on the duration of memory, memory extinction, and recognition factors.

I think there is a lot more to be learned about those factors that we don't really know. Quite obviously, bees have evolved flexible systems because in their world the way things look changes constantly. Trees have no leaves, then they do. The hive is in the open, then it's hidden by weeds. Even more important for migratory bees to be able to learn new locations quickly

PLB

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