Student Spotlight: Joey Caldwell

Joey Caldwell, a Spring 2022 UROP Project funding recipient, conducted a project titled “Relational Learning in Honeybees” with his mentor Dr. Pat Couvillon (Department of Psychology). Joey examined how honeybees potentially have problem-solving skills previously detected only in non-human primates an some other mammals.

Joseph and Dr. Couvillon were interviewed by Hawai‘i Public Radio on August 22, 2022, where “The Conversation” producer Savannah Harriman Pote asked about Joey’s experience with the project. He playfully coined the term “beesearcher” as he reflected on learning about beekeeping while assisting with hive maintenance and gaining insight into the life of bees in nature Listen to the interview here.

“This project was a continuation of a series of experiments that I have been working on with Dr. Patricia Couvillion for three years. We have been exploring the upper limits of honeybee learning by challenging them with complex cognitive tasks. Relational learning was previously thought to be restricted to humans and other vertebrates. However, recent
research has shown honeybees are among the few invertebrates known to be able to solve these complex problems. Our work aimed to explore the generality of those findings and perform similar experiments with new categories of artificial flowers. An unexpected highlight of this project was presenting it at the national meetings of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in Austin, Texas last January. It was a valuable experience for me to meet other professionals in the field and discuss the findings and implications of our work with bees. The exposure to a wide variety of animal behavior research gave me a better idea of graduate programs available nationwide. I was also able to make contacts with peers from around the world and potential graduate mentors. Working with Dr. Couvillon has undoubtedly been the most enriching and important experience of my academic career and development as a scientist.”

—Joey Caldwell

Joey’s project explores the capacity of honeybees to learn relations. Examples of such relations are same vs. different and large vs. small. Long regarded as a learning capability reserved for mammals, and especially primate species, relational learning now has been demonstrated in honeybees. The honeybee studies are particularly well-suited for involvement of undergraduate researchers because the techniques are relatively “low tech.” Students are able to independently collect data in honeybee learning experiments even in one semester.

“I have mentored undergraduate research students almost continuously over my research career. Essentially, the honeybee research allows students to have hands-on experience with all phases of the scientific method in a relatively short period of time. During his tenure in the lab, Joey has developed a strong interest in honeybees and in the learning capacities of invertebrates. He has become a very competent researcher, and he now is well-prepared for graduate studies!”

—Dr. Couvillon