The glass is not yet half empty: agitation but not Varroa treatment causes cognitive bias in honey bees
- 368 Downloads
Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are prone to judge an ambiguous stimulus negatively if they had been agitated through shaking which simulates a predator attack. Such a cognitive bias has been suggested to reflect an internal emotional state analogous to humans who judge more pessimistically when they do not feel well. In order to test cognitive bias experimentally, an animal is conditioned to respond to two different stimuli, where one is punished while the other is rewarded. Subsequently a third, ambiguous stimulus is presented and it is measured whether the subject responds as if it expects a reward or a punishment. Generally, it is assumed that negative experiences lower future expectations, rendering the animals more pessimistic. Here we tested whether a most likely negatively experienced formic acid treatment against the parasitic mite Varroa destructor also affects future expectations of honey bees. We applied an olfactory learning paradigm (i.e., conditioned proboscis extension response) using two odorants and blends of these odorants as the ambiguous stimuli. Unlike agitating honey bees, exposure to formic acid did not significantly change the response to the ambiguous stimuli in comparison with untreated bees. Overall evidence suggests that the commonest treatment against one of the most harmful bee pests has no detrimental effects on cognitive bias in honey bees.
KeywordsProboscis extension reflex Olfactory conditioning Formic acid Appetitive learning Aversive learning Invertebrate emotion
We thank Ricarda Scheiner for advice on olfactory learning procedures in the honey bee and Ivana Moschella for laboratory assistance and preliminary experiments. The work was supported by the “Incentive Award of the Faculty of Biology/Chemistry” of the University of Osnabrueck to HS.
Compliance with ethical standards
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest with any of the funding agencies of the research reported herein.
All applicable international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.
- Charrière JD, Imdorf A, Kilchenmann V (1992) Konzentrationen der Ameisensäure in der Stockluft von Bienenvölkern während der Anwendung gegen Varroa jacobsoni. ADIZ 26(9):12–16Google Scholar
- R Core Team (2015) R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. https://www.R-project.org/
- Scheiner R, Abramson CI, Brodschneider R, Crailsheim K, Farina WM, Fuchs S, Grünewald B, Hahshold S, Karrer M, Koeniger G, Koeniger N, Menzel R, Mujagic S, Radspieler G, Schmickl T, Schneider C, Siegel AJ, Szopek M, Thenius R (2013) Standard methods for behavioral studies of Apis mellifera. J Apic Res 52(4):1–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- Sherwin CM (2001) Can invertebrates suffer? Or, how robust is argument-by-analogy? Anim Welf 10:S103–S118Google Scholar