It is not just humans that get stuck in their ways. For scientists have discovered that old bees have trouble finding their way to new hives as their learning behavior becomes increasingly inflexible.

世界上迷路的不仅仅是人类。科学家发现，“老年”蜜蜂由于行动趋于迟滞，在寻找新家时也会出现困难。

Bees are typically impressive navigators, able to wend their way home through complex landscapes after visits to flowers far removed from their nests. But researchers from Arizona State University and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences found that aging impairs the bees' ability to extinguish the memory of an unsuitable nest site even after the colony has settled in a new home.

蜜蜂一向以方向感优秀著称，它们在院里蜂窝很远的花朵上采蜜后，还能够“跋山涉水”地回到家。但是亚利桑那州里大学和挪威生命科学大学的研究人员发现，重新安家蜜蜂们会随年龄增加使得他们忘却“老家”地址的能力受到损害。

To test how old bees adapt to a changed home location, researchers trained bees to a new nest box while their former nest was closed off. Groups composed of mature and old bees were given several days in which to learn the new home location and to extinguish the bees' memory of their unusable former nest box. The scientists then disassembled the bees' new home and forced groups of mixed-age bees to choose between three alternative nest locations, including the former nest box.

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