Honey Bee Foraging Decisions Are Shaped by Floral Trait Distinctiveness and Perception of Gains or Losses

The floral choices of honey bees (<i>Apis mellifera</i>) were studied using artificial flower patches to understand how foragers manage changing floral landscapes. Bees were observed under conditions where reward quality changed over time in blue and white flowers. We evaluated initial learning and reversal learning, varying the magnitude of reward quality-difference and color distinctness in the honey bee's color vision space (being either similar or more distinct). Flower color fidelity was higher when flower colors were more distinct, but it also made it more difficult for bees to abandon the flower color in the reversal learning phase. Smaller differences in reward quality reduced flower color fidelity and promoted reversal learning. When reward difference between flower colors was created (initial learning), a decrease in one of the flower color rewards elicited a stronger behavioral response from foragers than an increase in reward. Our work highlights that bees used and integrated information from different axes of information: distinctiveness of color cues, magnitude of reward difference, and directionality (being stronger for losses than gains). Thus, flower distinctiveness, opportunity cost, and loss aversion drive honey bee foraging decisions. Higher accuracy at initial learning has stronger costs in behavioral adaptations at changing floral landscapes.