Editing Bee learning and communication (section)

====Color memory====
After his work on color preferences, Menzel extended his experiments to study aspects of color learning and memory. He wanted to know how many trials bees need to reliably choose a previously rewarded color when they are presented with several alternatives, and how long they would remember the rewarded color.

Menzel did several experiments to answer these questions. First, he gave individual bees a single sugar reward on a colored background.  He then kept these bees in small cages for several days without any further trials. After a few days, he presented each bee with an array of several dishes, each on a different colored background. One of the colors was the same as that used during the initial trial, and the others were novel, unrewarded colors. Remarkably, after a single trial and several days without exposure to the rewarded color, bees correctly chose to explore the color used in the first trial more than fifty-percent of the time.<ref name="Carew2000"/><ref name="Menzel"/>

Menzel then repeated this experiment with another group of bees, keeping all factors the same except that in the second round of testing he gave the bees three initial trials with the rewarded color instead of just one. When, after several days in confinement, the bees were presented with a choice of colors they almost always chose the color that was used on the first three trials.<ref name="Menzel"/>

This ability to retain information about color-linked rewards for several days after minimal exposure to the rewarded color demonstrates the remarkable facility with which bees learn and retain color information.