Ontogeny of honey bee orientation flights

Honey bee workers must perform "orientation flights" to learn the whereabouts of their hive so that they can return to it successfully when foraging away from their hive. We studied the ontogeny of orientation flights by releasing age-marked workers at various distances and recording their homing rate. Most bees cold successfully return home at 200 m when they were 8 days old and only show a small increase in homing when they were 13 days old. We conclude that most workers at age of 8 days old already have a good knowledge about their surroundings.