Must have been a hoot watching them while they were doing the experiment. I kind of did the same thing once with apples. My friend who was visiting had never seen a raccoon. The little bandits were stealing apples out of the boxes (waiting to be turned into apple sauce) on the deck. They had been visiting nightly, and even while she was there, but she kept missing them.
I finally set up an overturned cardboard box on top of the hot tub and set up 3 apples on top. So we were watching and watching (and chatting) and somehow in not paying attention for only an instant, there was only one apple sitting there. So I set them up again. Finally she got to view the whole family. She was tickled pink.