# Visual learning performance in free-flying honey bees is independent of sucrose and light responsiveness and depends on training context

## TL;DR

Honey bees' ability to learn visually while flying freely does not depend on their response to sugar or light, and is influenced by the training environment.

## Contribution

This study is the first to show that sensory responsiveness does not predict visual learning performance in free-flying honey bees.

## Key findings

- Sensory responsiveness and learning proficiency did not correlate in free-flying bees.
- Sucrose responsiveness did not correlate with light responsiveness.
- Context affects the relationship between sensory responsiveness and learning.

## Abstract

Associative learning plays a fundamental role in the life of honey bees, especially in the context of foraging for food sources. This learning capacity can be investigated through controlled experiments conducted under laboratory, semi-natural, and near-natural conditions, to understand the general principles of learning and motivation. Honey bees can be trained to solve different elemental and non-elemental learning tasks by pairing a conditioned stimulus such as an odor with sucrose as an unconditioned stimulus and reward. Laboratory studies with restrained bees demonstrated that sucrose responsiveness is positively correlated with both elemental olfactory learning performance and responsiveness to stimuli of different sensory modalities, such as odors and visual stimuli. Here, we tested for the first time how responsiveness to sucrose and light is related to performance in elemental and non-elemental visual learning under free-flying conditions. Sensory responsiveness and learning proficiency did not correlate, nor did sucrose responsiveness correlate with responsiveness to light. These results indicate that relationships among responsiveness to sucrose and light and learning proficiency, as established under restrained laboratory conditions, may not translate to the natural behavior of bees in the field. This finding points toward the context-dependent importance of responsiveness to light and sucrose during associative learning under restrained or free-flying conditions.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-025-34900-9.