Observation data for 38 bees from 3 colonies.  Bees Yellow 4 and Green 47 did not complete the test phase of the experiment and so were excluded from the analyses (see main text).  

The first three columns: Colony, Bee, and Treatment, are the colony the bee came from, the bee ID and the treatment the bee was assigned to (Control, Low Difference or High Difference).

Surface relates to the discs used for the artificial flowers and is either “coarse-rough” (the floral surfaces the bees could easily grip on to) or “micro-rough” (the slippery floral surfaces). This also identifies the phase of the experiment: coarse-rough surfaces were used in the familiarisation phase of the experiment, and micro-rough in the test phase.

Observations were grouped by the flower with which the bee most recently interacted. Each group of interactions was given a unique flower ID, with this ID changing when the bee interacted with a new flower, or took off following a rest. If a bee made a repeat visit to a flower later on in a foraging trip, then this group of interactions were given a new flower ID so that, in line with our methods (see main text), this could be counted as a separate floral visit/drink. 

Observation could take one of nine values.  “boutStartStop” is either the start or the end of the foraging trip. The time associated with “boutStartStop” at the start of a foraging trip is time spent flying in the flight arena (from when the bee entered the flight arena); the time associated with “boutStartStop” at the end of a foraging trip is time spent in the colony (from when the bee left the flight arena). “leaveFlower” was used for when the bee was flying in the flight arena – this typically meant the bee had just left the flower from which she was currently visiting/foraging, but this was also used to indicate general flight, for instance if a bee took flight after a rest. “horizontalLandVisit” and “horizontalLandDrink” are where a bee was visiting or drinking (respectively) from a horizontal flower. “landVisit” and “landDrink” are where the bee was visiting or drinking (respectively) from a vertical flower. “hoverVisit” and “hoverDrink” are where a bee was visiting or drinking (respectively) from a vertical flower by hovering in front of the floral surface. “rest” is where the bee landed in the flight arena (but not on a flower).

Time is the amount of time spent by the bee on that activity, in milliseconds. The time for the final observation for each bee is marked with NA as this was the end of the experiment.

Visit number and drink number were calculated from the raw data as defined in the main text of the manuscript. Visit number gives the number of flowers visited and drink number the number of flowers from which the bee has consumed sucrose solution, again as defined in the main text of the manuscript.