Background

Social learning, the process of learning by observing or interacting with others, is crucial for complex behaviors and adapting these to specific environmental circumstances (Leadbeater and Chittka, 2007). Honey bee workers learn resource location and quality through the waggle dance, a sophisticated form of spatial referential communication (von Frisch, 1967). However, it was unknown if dance following could improve the performances of young waggle dancers or if the dance was entirely innate. Prior research and protocols focused on describing the waggle dance in experienced or novice bees but did not deprive them of the ability to follow waggle dances before they first danced. This deprivation, in which honey bees were unable to use social learning of waggle dancing, has not previously been described as a protocol or used to investigate waggle dancing.

Our protocol, therefore, explains how to design an experiment in which bees cannot follow other waggle dancers before they begin to dance (Dong et al., 2023). These findings indicate that social signal learning can enhance the accuracy of the waggle dance. When compared to bees that were exposed to waggle dancing, naive bees that could not observe dances prior to their first dance displayed larger divergence angle errors, signaled longer distances, and demonstrated significantly more disarray in their dances. However, when these same bees were 20 days old and had gained experience with dance following and dancing, they noticeably reduced divergence angle errors and performed more coordinated dances. Despite these improvements, they were consistently unable to accurately encode distance. These corrections in the experimental older dancers, as compared to their first dances, could be attributed to increased age, more experience following dances, additional practice with flight and foraging, or a combination thereof. Control bees only managed to reduce distance errors as they aged. Having the opportunity to observe experienced dancers before their first dance was enough for the control bees to have the lower directional errors characteristic of older, experienced bees (Dong et al., 2023).

This setup can be employed by other researchers to further explore the role of social learning in eusocial insects and its impact on communication and decision-making within colonies. Such experiments can provide a foundation for designing studies that investigate various aspects of social learning, including the following:

1. Comparisons across species: by conducting similar experiments on different species of eusocial insects, researchers can compare the extent and mechanisms of social learning between species, as well as the influence of genetic and environmental factors on the development of complex behaviors and communication.

2. Impact of social learning on colony performance: researchers can investigate the relationship between the quality of social learning and the overall performance of the colony, including foraging efficiency, resource allocation, and reproductive success. This can help to identify the benefits of social learning in colony organization and decision making.

3. Development of individual learning abilities: by manipulating the availability of social learning opportunities, researchers can study the development of individual learning abilities in eusocial insects and determine the importance of social learning in the acquisition and refinement of specific skills.

4. Neural and molecular mechanisms: investigating the neural and molecular mechanisms underlying social learning in eusocial insects can help to elucidate the cognitive and physiological processes that facilitate the acquisition of complex behaviors and communication strategies.

5. Social learning and colony adaptation: by examining the impact of social learning on the ability of colonies to adapt to changing environments, researchers can better understand the role of social learning in the evolution and resilience of eusocial insect societies.

6. Artificial intelligence and robotics: insights gained from studying social learning in eusocial insects can be applied to the development of artificial intelligence and swarm robotics in which decentralized decision-making and communication strategies are crucial for efficient problem-solving and adaptation.

   By using this experimental setup as a starting point, researchers can expand our understanding of social learning in eusocial insects and its broader implications for evolution, ecology, and technology.

Location and timing

The following are instructions on the location and timing of the experiments:

1. Experiments were carried out at the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Kunming, China). These experiments can be conducted at multiple different locations that support healthy Apis mellifera colonies.

2. Carry out the experiments during the months of April–June when conditions are good. Note that these months were chosen because the temperature differences between day and night are moderate and facilitate the survival of young bee colonies. The correct months to conduct such experiments will vary depending on local conditions.