Prior location information is passed on via the 'waggle dance', systematically explained by Austrian Nobel Prize winner Karl von Frisch, the academic supervisor to German behavioural scientist Martin Lindauer, Menzel's own mentor.
[3] The focus of much of Menzel's work was neuroscientific research into memory formation and learning in bees, using behavioural analyses in the natural environment and the laboratory.
He has used biochemical, electrophysiological and optophysiological methods to research molecular and cellular processes in memory formation.
[2] For his PhD thesis, he discovered that honeybees learn to associate a colour with a [sugar] reward after one exposure, both very accurately and faster than any other organism.
[3]: 25 Later he discovered that honeybees' comparatively much broader sensitivity to odours has a similar speed and accuracy in creating memories, 90% accuracy after a sole exposure to odours typically important to the bees' pollen-and-nectar-gathering activities; in addition he found that this skill was flexible, so bees could be trained to associate non-typical chemicals with rewards.