Experiments on the use of honey bees ( Apis mellifera ) to solve practical problems are described. These problems include studies of alcoholism, influence of consumer products on Africanized honey bees, the effect of pesticides considered “harmless,” and the detection of adulterated hive products. The results of these experiments indicate that the study of invertebrate learning conducted within a comparative-psychological paradigm can provide much useful data to the solution of practical problems of significance to psychologists.

The proboscis extension reflex was used to investigate behavior

modification in one day old Africanized honey bees and in adult Uru^u honey bees.

Experiments were designed to investigate classical conditioning, pseudoconditioning,

and central excitatory state. Additional experiments examined the suitability of the

proboscis extension reflex to serve as a feeding assay were carried out on Urugu. The

results indicated no classical conditioning and no pseudoconditioning in young

Africanized bees or in the adult Uru9u. A large central excitatory effect was observed in

young Africanized bees, but only a small effect was observed in Urugu. The proboscis

extension reflex could be used as an assay to test the suitability of artificial diets in

Uru§u.