Further studies of the CAP pushing response in honey bees (Apis mellifera)

The Cap Pushing Response (CPR) is a free-flying technique used to study learning and memory in honey bees (Apis mellifera). In the CPR technique, bees fly to a target where they push a cap to reveal a hidden food source. The experiments outlined in this thesis aim to test whether honey bees exhibit the cognitive concept of “expectancy.” Five previous experiments have explored whether the concept of expectancy can account for honey bee performance. In each of the five experiments, all failed to supply any support to the cognitive interpretation. However, each of the results can be readily explained using traditional principles of non-associative and associative learning. This proposal aims to add to these previous experiments by further analyzing honey bees' "cognitive" behavior. Four experiments are proposed using the cap pushing response to determine honey bees ability to discriminate weight differences. In the first experiment, honey bees had to discriminate between two differently weighted caps presented successively. The distance pushed by each cap and the force the honey bees used to push the cap were recorded. In the second experiment, honey bees were presented with a simultaneous discrimination task both containing a sucrose reward to test honey bee choice preference. The third experiment is identical to the second experiment, except one target had a sucrose reward and the other water. The purpose was to see if manipulating the solution paired with the weighted cap influenced bees’ ability to discriminate weights. Lastly, the fourth experiment determined whether electric shock punishment influenced honey bees ability to discriminate weights. These four experiments contribute to the debate on whether honey bees have "cognitive" representations by seeing if they could expect reward based on cap weight.