Fig. 1.

Screenshot of the model world (landscape) of BEESCOUT interface, using the settings of Simulation 1 (see Results section) with 30 bumblebee scouts exploring a 700 × 700 m landscape. Lighter background areas relate to higher bee visiting densities and lighter shaded flower patches indicate a higher detection probability. Bees of different colours are in a different ‘flight phase’: green (phase 1): the bee is heading in a straight vector flight towards a field destination (e.g. a flower patch already visited); white (phase 2): the bee is in a small scale flight pattern; orange (phase 2): the bee is “looping”, i.e. returns to its field destination; blue (phase 3): the bee returns to the colony in a straight vector flight. Patches can be detected in any flight phase. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)