Colonies of bumblebees (Bombus terrestris audax) were obtained from Agralan, (Swindon, United Kingdom) or Koppert Biological Systems Nederland (Berkel en Rodenrijs, the Netherlands). Bees were housed in 30.0 × 14.0 × 16.0 cm bipartite wooden nest boxes, and all individuals were marked with numbered Opalith tags for individual identification during transfer to these nest boxes. This involved trapping each bee in a small cage, gently pressing it against the mesh with a sponge, and affixing the tag to the dorsal thorax with a small amount of glue. The nest boxes were connected to flight arenas (66.0 × 60.0 × 30.0 cm or 132.0 × 60.0 × 30.0 cm for single- and multiple-demonstrator experiments, respectively) via 26.0 × 3.5 × 3.5 cm clear acrylic tunnels, which could be blocked to limit access to the flight arena. Bees were allowed to forage ad libitum on 20% w/w sucrose solution provided in mass feeders in these arenas overnight, and pollen was provided every 2 days. Colonies were maintained at standardised room temperature throughout the study, and experiments were conducted under standardised artificial lights (12:12, high-frequency fluorescent lighting; TMS 24F lamps with HF-B 236 TLD [4.3 kHz] ballasts [Koninklijke Phillips NV, Amsterdam, the Netherlands], fitted with Activa daylight fluorescent tubes [OSRAM Licht AG, Munich, Germany]).
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