From Science Daily:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080715204730.htm
Bees were divided into a control group and a group that were injected
with lipopolysaccharide, a substance that stimulated an immune
response without a need for the bee to be infected with a disease.
Bees were offered the choice of blue and yellow artificial flowers
only one type of which contained sugar water. An individual's flight
was recorded over ninety visits to these flowers. Eventually the bees
spent almost all of their time going to the rewarding flowers, but it
took the immune stimulated bees longer to reach this point.
Dr Mallon added: "This work has two important applications. Firstly,
there is a lot of interest in the connections between the immune
system and the nervous system in human biology. The Mallon lab was the
first to show that these interactions also exist in the much more
experimentally tractable insects.
"Secondly, there is concern about both the decline in wild bumble-bee
species and the effects of disease on the honeybee industry. It has
been shown that learning is vitally important to how well a colony
prospers. This effect of immunity on learning highlights a previously
unconsidered effect of disease on colony success."
Bill Truesdell
Bath, Maine
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