environment. Time-place learning In addition to more typical cues like color and odor, insects are able to use time as a foraging cue. Time is a particularly important cue for pollinators. Pollinators forage on flowers which tend to vary predictably in time and space, depending on the flower species, pollinators can learn the timing of blooming of flower species to develop more efficient foraging routes. Bees learn at which times and in which areas sites are rewarding and change their preference for particular sites based on the time of day. These time-based preferences have been shown to be tied to a circadian clock in some insects. In the absence of external cues honeybees will still show a shift in preference for a reward depending on time strongly implicating an internal time-keeping mechanism, i.e. the circadian clock, in modulating the learned preference. Moreover, not only can bees remember when a particular site is rewarding but they can also remember at what times multiple different sites are profitable. Certain butterfly species also show evidence for time-place learning due to their trap-line foraging behaviour. This is when an animal consistently visits the same foraging sites in a sequential manner across multiple days and is thought to be suggestive of a time-place learning ability. Innovation capacity Insects are also capable of behavioral innovations. Innovation is defined as the creation of a new or modified learned behavior not previously found in the population. Innovative abilities can be experimentally studied in insects through the use of problem solving tasks. When presented with a string-pulling task, many bumblebees cannot solve the task, but a few can innovate the solution. Those that initially could not solve the task can learn to solve it by observing an innovator bee solving the task. These learned behaviors can then spread culturally through bee populations. More recent studies in insects have begun to look at what traits (e.g. exploratory tendency) predict the propensity for an individual insect to be an innovator. Social aspects of insect foraging Social learning of foraging sites Insects can learn about foraging sites through observation or interaction with other individuals, termed social learning. This has been demonstrated in bumblebees. Bumblebees become attracted to rewarding flowers more quickly if they are occupied by other bumblebees and more quickly learn to associate that flower species with reward. Seeing a conspecific on a flower enhances preferences for flowers of that type.