Honey bees, too, use a highly specialized learning mechanism to help them figure out where they are going: the difference is that their system works … - Gary F. Marcus

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Honey bees, too, use a highly specialized learning mechanism to help them figure out where they are going: the difference is that their system works based on the trajectory of a single star, our very own sun. Once again, part of the system is prewired, but part of it requires learning. The prewired bit is a mathematical function that relates the sun's position on the horizon to to a bee's orientation-but some of the values of the equation must be set, which is where learning comes in. What the bee learns is a highly specific bit of information about the sun's trajectory at the bee's particular latitude at a particular time of year. A five o'clock winter sun in Boston means something very different from a five o'clock summer sun in California, and a highly focused learning mechanism allows honeybees to take advantage of that information. We know that bees don't simply memorize a correspondence between particular places on the horizon and particular headings, because bees that have been raised in conditions in which they are exposed only to morning light can accurately use the sun as a guide during evening light.