Time-Compensated Sun Orientation in Bees
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Excerpt
Only a few years have passed since v. Frisch showed that bees use the sun extensively for orientation, and that they are capable of associating correctly the time of day with the path of the sun according to its azimuth [1]. This was not to be expected a priori. As is known, bees do not use fixed migration routes like birds, and they do not have an innately preferred direction of flight as, e.g., Talitrus and some beetles and spiders. The goals of bees change from day to day and from week to week. They can find their way to a newly discovered feeding place without difficulty, by means of landmarks. E.g., when foraging bees visit a feeding place in the field, usually a large number of optical terrestrial clues, like trees, roads, etc., is available for orientation. It is true that the dancing bees use also the sun as...
