Flight direction.

<p>Box plots (box: median (central line) ± quartiles; whiskers: minimum – maximum values) of heading direction of homed and non-returning bees within each treatment (Nc = <i>Nosema</i>-inoculated, C_GE = bee gut-extract-control, C_S = sucrose-control) group after crossing the 60 m perimeter around the release site. The direction of the hive is indicated by the central dashed line. As the majority of the bees followed the available landmarks rather than assuming a direct approach to the hive, heading directions after 60 m from the release site generally deviate from the ideal direction. Using a linear mixed model (LMM) fitted by restricted maximum likelihood (REML), there was neither a statistically significant difference between homed and non-returning bees nor among the treatment groups.