One limitation of testing potentially short-lived individuals on successive days, however, is the uneven removal of animals from the experimental groups, which were of different foraging age.
This was achieved by marking bees of random foraging age in two rounds, so that on testing days the bees of this mixed-age population had been foraging for 15 days or more (first marking), and 11 days or more (second marking, see Fig. 3, "days to age").
Foraging age was approximated by the age on the day the individual was collected.
Foraging age was tracked by individual paint-marks, as described previously [14].
Further, the soldier class of bee is composed of forager-age bees that do not forage (Breed et al. 1990).
As age of the specimen and year of collection could be potential confounding variables in the analysis of foraging ecology, the age of each individual was determined.
To assess age related decline of olfactory memory performance, we first contrasted two experimental groups with different foraging ages: mature controls were collected 5 10 days after the onset of foraging, old forager bees were allowed to forage for more than 15 days.
That's where my love of foraging and plants began.
These trends demonstrate a faster rate of transition between tasks in the HSBs and are consistent with their earlier foraging age.
Old foragers after extended periods of foraging (foraging duration >15 days): Foragers of random foraging age were caught at the hive entrance.
