Talk:Bee learning and communication

Untitled

Hi there-- You'd put back into this article at the top material that was previously there, perhaps under the impression that someone had taken your material out. They hadn't! All the material is still in the article, but a lot of additional material has been added so your original work is scattered through. I've therefore reverted to the version we had on 19th November. seglea 16:10, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Major component is missing

Bees dance to communicate not only the discovery of worthwhile sources of nectar, but also to communicate the discovery of worthwhile sources of pollen, and the dances are different. Also, research has been done that indicates that bees are using sound to complement the movements involved in their dances.

Another major component is the use of dance by swarms to decide upon a nest location. Tom Seeley of Cornell ( http://www.nbb.cornell.edu/seeley.shtml ) has stressed this use of dance in many papers and both his books, but I am uncertain as to which of his many works might make the best citation for this point.

Under "Odor Plume", I think it is telling that despite a substantial amount of verbage on the issue, the two numbered points lack citations:

" 1. clinical experiments with odorless sugar sources which show that worker bees are unable to recruit to those sources and

  2. logical difficulties of a small-scale dance (a few centimeters across) giving directions precise enough to hold the other bees on course 

during a flight that could be several kilometers long. Misreading by even a few degrees would lead the bee off course by hundreds of meters at the far end."

Both these should be branded "[Citation Needed]".

In refutation of both points, we have the work of William F. Towne, of the Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, such as this paper: http://faculty.kutztown.edu/towne/Towne_2008_JEB_211_3737-3743.pdf, in which he shows succinctly that bees can be fooled into recruiting foragers via dancing about a location in the opposite direction from the actual food source when introduced into a "mirror image" terrain and deprived of the navigational reference provided by the sun. When the cloud cover passes, the bees dances, and the resulting forager visits both become accurate once again, which is compelling evidence in favor of "dance".

I am new to Wikipedia, so please excuse if my attempts at an "edit" are less-than elegant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Packetfire (talk • contribs) 16:12, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Misleading comments related to Wenner's anti-dance theory

For example I believe it may be misleading to say there are two main hypotheses. I think, in general, the dance-language hypothesis is accepted and pretty much cemented. Wenner is seen as being on the fringe, especially after James L. Gould's experiment.

Also the quote about von Fritsch doubting his theory. He lived long enough to see Gould's experiment and I think he probably saw that as vindication, like with almost everybody else at the time. --C S 20:17, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

The honeybee "dance language" (DL) controversy

The issue I deal with has been dealt with on Wikipedia before, but never in such detail, nor in such unequivocal terms..

Many have probably heard of the greatest discovery ever made in the behavioral science, i.e. the discovery of the honeybee "dance language" (abbreviated here as: DL), which was first published by K. von Frisch in a scientific journal, in 1946, and soon became a revered ruling paradigm. The discovery has been touted practically everywhere, in the professional scientific-media, as well as the the popular scientific media. It was taught as gospel to college students and high-school kids, and even to pre-kindergarten children. It earned v. Frisch numerous tokens of admiration, including honorary membership in scientific academies all over the world, The Magellanic Premium Prize, awarded by the American Philosophical Society (in 1955), The Kalinga UNESCO Prize (in 1958), a Balzan Prize, considered second in importance only to the Nobel Prize, (in 1962), and finally (in 1973), also the Nobel prize in Medicine or physiology (which v. Frisch shared with Konrad Lorenz & Niko Tinbergen, the two co-founders of the general approach to the study of behavior, known as European Ethology).

Nonetheless, the discovery of the honeybee DL is a "discovery" of something that never existed., and constitutes the greatest goof in the history of science, not for any one specific reason, but for the awesome weight of many different reasons combined; including the fact that the "discovery" helped Lorenz & Tinbergen share v. Frisch's Nobel Prize. What v. Frisch claimed to have discovered, and experimentally confirmed, was the claim that honeybee-recruits use spatial information contained in foragers'-dances about the approximate site of the foragers' food-source, to help them find the source. The claim initially met with disbelief, but several highly influential scientists became quickly converted, and sent the sensational claim on its quick way to becoming a revered ruling paradigm.

When v. Frisch was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1973, this happened 6 years after Wenner & his team had already launched their fully justified critique of the DL hypothesis, based on experimental work, in the journal Science (in 1967); claiming that honeybee-recruits use odor alone all along. This led to a severe backlash that soon turned Wenner & his team into pariahs. You can find some information about it, and much more, in the book by Wenner & Wells (1990): " Anatomy of a Controversy: The Question of a "Language" Among Bees", published by Columbia University Press. Eventually, it turned out, however, that when Wenner's team discovered, and published in 1967, that honeybee-recruits use odor alone all along, they unknowingly re-discovered what v. Frisch himself had already discovered and published, on the basis of his own experimental results, at least as early as 1923, i.e. that honeybee-recruits use odor alone and no information about the location of any food; which v. Frisch had discovered some 50 years before he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his "discovery" that they use information contained in foragers'-dances about the location of the foragers' food-source.

When honeybee-foragers are trained to a feeder with a scented sugar-solution far from the hive, they perform figure-eight waggle-dances, where the 2 curved haves of the figure are joined by a straight waggle-run, during which the foragers waggle their abdomens, vibrate their wings, and also emit a pulsed sound. The dancing foragers turn out of the waggle-run alternately to the right, and left. As the feeder is gradually brought closer to the hive, the foragers are less exhausted when they dance, and as a result they dance faster. This causes the curved portions of the dance to become longer, the waggle-run , to become shorter, with fewer waggles, and alternate waggle-runs to become separated by an angle; until finally the curved portion extends to more than a full circle, and the waggle-run is performed so quickly that the dancing foragers have no time to waggle at all. They then perform what are known as perfect round dances.

In v. Frisch's first study on honeybee-recruitment , done with the local Austrian honeybee-strain (and published in an extensive summary in 1923), foragers were trained to a dish with a scented sugar-solution only 13-16 m. from the hive, and, thus, performed only round dances without a trace of a waggle. (In fact, at that time he did not even know they could at all perform waggle dances. He believed that round dances were performed for nectar, or its experimental substitute, i.e. a solution of sugar in water, while waggle dances were performed for pollen.) V. Frisch then distributed in the field other, very small, identical dishes with the same amount of the same scented sugar-solution, capturing and counting all new-arrivals. In some tests he deliberately placed dishes with a sugar-solution that had a different food-odor right next to dishes with the foragers' food-odor, i.e. practically at the same site. In some tests he captured new-arrivals, individually marked them, and released them to verify that they indeed came from his experimental hive, and not from just any hive in the apiary. His recruits found all the dishes with the foragers' food-odor, and none of the dishes with a different food-odor, up to a distance of 1,000 m. from the hive (the greatest distance then tested). Since they found, among others, also dishes to which the foragers were not flying, and could noteven have known existed at all, he fully justifiably concluded that recruit find food with the foragers' food-odor, not by following foragers in flight all the way from the hive to the food, nor by using any information about the location of any food, but by use of odor alone.

According to his DL hypothesis (first published in a scientific journal more than 20 years later), round dances cause recruits to find food only within the round dance range; which is not more than 100 m. from the hive for the Austrian honeybees. The experimental results v. Frisch had obtained in his first study on honeybee-recruitment, thus, grossly contradicted his DL hypothesis long before its inception, and the DL hypothesis was, therefore, very clearly and obviously stillborn.

An inadvertent test carried out by a colleague of his in 1943, during the extremely turbulent period of WWII, led v. Frisch to conclude that his initial conclusion that recruits use odor alone all along, must have been an error, (which it never was), and gradually replace it with his sensational DL hypothesis (published shortly after the War). It is very interesting and important to understand how, and why that happened. We now know that what tripped v. Frisch was primarily his very early erroneous conclusion (of 1919), based on his own experimental results, that honeybees had a very poor, human-like sensitivity to odors. (V. Frisch made that error at a time when it was only too easy to make, and before he even turned to study honeybee-recruitment.) The details of his first study on honeybee-recruitment showed that the closer a dish with the foragers' food-odor was to the hive, the earlier it was found by recruits, and the greater the number of new-arrivals it received.

V. Frish, therefore, had to explain how recruits, with their presumably very poor sensitivity to odors, searched for attractive odors, to produce the details of the results he had obtained. His result meant to him that the closer a dish was to the hive, the earlier recruits had to get close enough to the dish, so as to even sense the odors from the dish. And this left v. Frisch no choice but to assume that the way recruits searched for attractive odors was, by conducting a circular-search that gradually expanded around the hive, and extended (when necessary), to the limits of the foraging area of the colony. This assumption regarding how recruits use odor alone all along, required him to expect basically the same results in all future tests, i.e. that the closer a dish was to the hive, the earlier it would be found by recruits, and the greater number of new-arrivals it would receive. The case was closed, and it remained closed for another 20 years; until 1943.

V. Frish tells all about what happened in 1943 in his definitive book on the honeybee DL:"The Dance language and Orientation of Bees" (1967), translated from the original German edition of 1965 , and published by Harvard University Press. A colleague of his trained foragers to a dish with a scented sugar-solution 500 m. from the hive. She then wanted to have another foragers'-dish very close to the hive. V. Frisch does not explain what she intended to test, but he gave her what he believed was a very good piece of advice. In order to save herself the chore of training foragers to such a dish, he advised her to set the dish near the hive, fill it with the same scented sugar-solution she was using at the 500 m. site, and let the bees do her work for her. He expected that new recruits would now first find the dish near the hive. Instead, recruits continued to arrive at the 500 m. site. To v. Frisch this meant that his initial conclusion that recruits used odor alone all along must have been in error, and that in addition to odors they must have used something else, which enables them to know where to go. An examination of the dances of the foragers from the 500 m. dish revealed that they were performing waggle-dances, instead of the round dances he expected them to perform; which meant that the type of dance did not depend on the type of food, but on the distance of the food from the hive. This, soon led to the discovery of the distance and direction information contained in foragers' waggle-dances; which seemed to v. Frisch to provide that which recruits were using in addition to odors. They were apparently using the spatial information contained in the dances, and then (when necessary), supplementing that by searching for attractive odors only within a relatively short range around the point reached by use of the spatial information alone.

And the rest is history! The stillborn DL hypothesis gradually rose all the way to the status of a presumably fully properly experimentally confirmed hypothesis, and win the Nobel Prize. Today we know, however, that the only reason v. Frisch's expectations from use of odor alone all along failed in that inadvertent 1943 test (as well as in other similar tests), was not at all due to any error in his initial 1923 conclusion regarding what honeybee-recruits use, but only due to his erroneous expectations from use of odor alone all along; which were based on his erroneous conclusion regarding how recruits use odor alone all along; which was, in turn, based on his error regarding the sensitivity of honeybees to odors.

Wenner & his team had to re-discover on their own that recruits use odor alone all along, because they could not have known of v. Frisch's first study on honeybee-recruitment. After the inception of his DL hypothesis v. Frisch phased out the results he had obtained in that study. He never repeated the tests done in that study. Instead, he carried out 2 new tests with round dances, using a drastically different number and arrangement of small dishes with the foragers' food-odor, than he used in his first study on honeybee-recruitment. This time, recruits found all the dishes within 100 m. of the hive, and none of the dishes that were available outside that range, just as was expected according to his DL hypothesis. (He could not have known he was doing anything wrong, because the number, and geometric arrangement of the dishes is expected to have a major effect on use of odor alone all along, but only provided honeybees have an exceptionally high sensitivity to odors; a possibility that did not exist for v. Frisch.) In his 1967 (1965) book he did not provide the results he had obtained in his first study on honeybee-recruitment. Instead, he provided the results of those 2 new-tests with round dances (actually done in 1962). And since he repeatedly claimed to have experimentally confirmed his DL hypothesis, DL opponents naturally examined only his evidence for that claim, and did not bother to check any of his earlier publications, where such evidence could not have been found. Little did we know what we could find there!

Eventually I accidentally stumbled on a short article by v. Frisch, published in 1939, in the Annual report of the Smithsonian Institution in the US. The publication was a reprint of a 1937 publication, based on a guest-lecture v. Frisch had delivered at the University College of London in 1937, summarizing his whole earlier honeybee-research; including his first study on honeybee-recruitment, and his fully justified conclusion, based on that study, that recruits use odor alone, and no information about the location of any food. I published the find in J. theoret. Biol., 84: 775-800 (1980), but no one except the handful of DL opponents paid attention.

V. Frisch's error regarding the sensitivity of honeybees to odors was discovered by the British honeybee-researcher, Ribbands, and is presented in his book: " The Behaviour and Social Life of Honeybees ",published by IBRA (the International Bee Research Association, in 1953. . In his 1967 (1965) book, v. Frisch did his best to discredit Ribbands, and brought up the results of 3 new studies on the sensitivity of honeybees to odors, each done by a single researcher, using a different technique, all vindicating v. Frisch vs. Ribbands, and all , interestingly done by researchers who were directly, or indirectly associated with v. Frisch. So great was v. Frisch's prestige, that Wenner had to inadvertently also re-discover on his own, and publish in 1971, what Ribbands had already discovered and published in 1953, i.e. that, contrary to v. Frisch, honeybees had an exceptionally high sensitivity to odors. This is today fully established to the point that scientists are working on ways to train honeybees to sniff explosives in mine-fields.

Ribbands, however, either could not see how v. Frisch's error regarding the sensitivity of honeybees to odors tripped him and misled him into his DL hypothesis. Or else, Ribbands might have been influenced by another faulty argument for the DL hypothesis, often raised by DL supporters, starting with v. Frisch himself. V. Frisch discovered that honeybee-dances are not learned, which led to the erroneous conclusion that they must be "instinctive", i.e. genetically predetermined. As such, they had to be adaptive, as one whole behavior; all the more so since they involve the expenditure of a considerable amount of time & energy on the part of both dancer & dance-attendants. There is, however, no conceivable adaptive value for honeybee dances as one whole behavior, except to serve in a DL that utilizes the spatial information contained in the dances. The honeybee DL, therefore, simply had to exist! The assumption that honeybee dances constitute one whole, genetically predetermined behavior is, however, unwarranted. instead, the dances apparently comprise many different component-responses, some learned, and some not learned. At any rate, Ribbands remained a faithful believer in the existence of the honeybee DL.

V. Frisch correctly took it for granted that his sensational DL hypothesis could not, and should not be accepted without a proper experimental confirmation. He believed, however, that he had repeatedly provided such a confirmation; which he actually never achieved. Attempts to experimentally confirm the DL hypothesis have been going on ever since v. Frisch published the hypothesis in 1946, i.e. for almost 60 years; by now at the expense of a considerable amount of time & talent, and millions of dollars of good research-funds. Every few years DL supporters publish a new claim of having finally achieved the required experimental confirmation. The scientific publications of such claims is often accompanied by considerable hype in the popular scientific-media. Nonetheless, none of those claims have ever passed the rigorous scrutiny given them by DL opponents. And this includes even the latest such claim, publicised on the Internet for at least a year and a half prior to publication, then, finally published in the journal Nature on May 12 (2005), and immediately touted everywhere, starting with the BBC. DL opponents can always detect serious, and sometimes even utterly incredible errors, in such publications.

For instance, the honeybee DL hypothesis was formulated specifically in order to explain how honeybee-recruits find their foragers' food-source, and other sources with the same odor, in the field. In the study underlying the latest claim (published in Nature of May, 2005), only two of the radar- tracked bees (out of 19 bees fitted with transponders and released at the hive, for which radar-tracks are available), are reported to have landed at the feeder. One of the authors (U. Greggers), however, advised me (through e-mail exchange), that those 2 bees actually landed on the feeder-stand, but never found the feeder. This means that none of the bees radar-tracked in that specific study found any food. It is, however, in principle impossible to address the problem whether honeybees do, or do not, use a DL to help them find food in the field, by studying only bees that never found any food.

But, as soon as you give recruits a chance to find food (by adding scent to the food, which the authors deliberately avoided), new bees invariably arrive at the feeder through an upwind zigzag from as far as they can only be spotted by observers at the feeder with the naked eye, i.e. from a distance of at least 10 m. away. This alone suffices to completely discredit the DL hypothesis. Both the distance-information, and the direction-information, contained in the dances, have a normal distribution, with a maximum that indicates the distance & direction of the foragers'-feeder. Recruits are, therefore, often expected to get much closer to the feeder, by use the distance & direction information alone (coming from the direction of the hive), and if they hit a point within the odor-plume that extends downwind from the feeder, they are, then, expected to reach the feeder through a very short upwind zizag. That never happens!

This is, in fact, expected to happen also in the case of other identical sources of attractive odors in the field, but it is expected less often the further such a source is from the foragers'-feeder. The expectation has never materialized in observations on the arrivals of thousands of new-bees, in many studies done by both DL opponents, and DL supporters.

Now, most claims by DL supporters, to have experimentally confirmed use of the DL (though not all), are based on the interpretations of distributions of new-arrivals among various, small, identical, man-made sources of attractive odors scattered by experimenters in the field. Such data can not provide any confirmation for use of DL information, because in the first study that launched the opposition to the DL hypothesis by Wenner's team, in 1967, the authors had already discovered that the distributions of new-arrivals are totally independent of DL information. (You can obtain the same distributions of new-arrivals with different DL information, and different distributions, with the same DL information).

Interestingly, initially v. Frisch captured and removed all new-arrivals. Eventually, however, he began to use odor without food at all his sites (stations), except, of course, at the foragers'-feeder (the foragers'-station). He, then stopped capturing new-arrivals, which did not always actually land at stations other than the foragers'-station, and introduced instead, the criterion of counting all bees that were observed to arrive within at least 20 cm. of a station, through an upwind zigzag, from outside the visual field for spotting honeybees in flight. He was, thus continually looking at evidence concerning the typical manner of arrival, which alone suffices to completely discredit the DL hypothesis. He was, however, so intent on obtaining data on where recruits arrived, with the hope that he would, thus, be able to obtain the required experimental confirmation that honeybees have a DL, that he did not "see" that which was continually right in front of his eyes.

The failure of DL supporters, for almost 60 years, to achieve the required experimental confirmation of the DL hypothesis, is not surprising at all. It is impossible to revive a DL hypothesis that was so clearly stillborn more than 80 years ago, thanks to v. Frisch's first study on honeybee-recruitment.!

Warning signs against the DL hypothesis kept continually cropping up, in the form of "anomalous" results, in the experiments done by DL supporters themselves, starting with v. Frisch. The way v. Frisch usually handled such "anomalies" was by introducing never experimentally confirmed, or even tested, ad hoc revisions, i.e. auxiliary hypotheses that made it possible to incorporate the "anomalous" results within the now revised version of the DL hypothesis. Other DL supporters followed v. Frisch's example. Except that eventually they were obliged to introduce so many auxiliary hypothesis, that they, inevitably, ended up contradicting one another, and sometimes even themselves (since they failed to carefully fully examine all the implications of each, and every auxiliary hypothesis). As a result, by now no one even knows anymore what the DL hypothesis really stands for, beyond the core-claim that somewhere, somehow, some honeybees, use the spatial information contained in foragers'-dances. A hypothesis that can not predict anything more definite than that, cannot be tested, and, does not, therefore, qualify as a scientific hypothesis at all.

Now, scientists can go to a hive, observe a dancing forager, and determine approximately at which distance & direction the forager had foraged. However, the only way scientists can do that is, by relying on a detailed preliminary research on the relations between various aspects of the dances, and the distance & direction of the foragers'-food; which must be done separately for each honeybee species, and strain. Honeybees obviously do not engage in any scientific research. So, how can they obtain the spatial information contained in the dances? Well, DL supporters have always assumed that the bees do it all "instinctively", i. e. with the aid of some genetically predetermined, computer-like mechanism in the brain, that does it for them. European Ethology is based on the misguided belief in the existence of genetically predetermined "instincts". This is how the erroneous belief by the 1973 Nobel Committee, that the existence of the honeybee DL had already been properly experimentally confirmed, provided European Ethology with its most impressive validation. Genes predetermine a whole range of potential individual development, as well as what is outside that range. They do not, however, alone, predetermine what will actually materialize in individual development. This is determined, instead, by inseparable effects of both genes & environment. Just consider a one-celled fertilized egg (which is how most individual lives begin). It is always possible to apply environmental conditions that would snuff an individual life at that very early, initial stage. Obviously, it is not genetically predetermined that an individual life should develop into anything beyond that very early, initial stage.

There is obviously much more to be said about the honeybee DL controversy that has been going on for close to 40 years, and constitutes the most important reflection of a general, basic controversy over the very foundations of the whole field of Behavioral Science, which has been going on since the mid-30's of last century. But I shall say no more here.

Sincerely, Ruth Rosin ("Prickly pear")

This has been extensively discussed in academic journals and subject-matter discussions such as BEE-L. While there have been some experiments challenging the dance language hypothesis, those studies have been challenged on methodological grounds. You described the weaknesses in some of the initial studies but gloss over the more recent experiments which have supported the dance language theory. Based on my own readings, I do not believe that the odor-alone theory is able to explain all the experimental data. For example, odor-alone is unable to explain the successful recruitment of foragers when the sugar source is downwind of the hive. Odor-alone is also unable to explain the results of this study in which flight-paths of foragers were radar-tracked after being moved to alternate release points. The tracked flight-paths were offset from the original flight-paths by essentially the same distance that the release point had been displaced. (In fairness, those studies have often been over-hyped in the media and have sometimes been challenged on methodological grounds.)

For part of the bee-researching community, the debate has become very polarized with a few people strongly advocating that the dance theory was completely mistaken and that odor-alone is sufficient and a few other people loudly (and sometimes rudely) ridiculing those claims. (On the flip side, as far as I can tell no one arguing that odor plays no part.) From everything I can tell though, the majority of bee researchers continue to support the dance-language theory to one degree or another. To say that the dance language hypothesis has been disproven or "was stillborn" is an overstatement. From my own readings, the general consensus is that the dance language communicates the gross directions and that odor and to a lesser extent vision are used to hone in on the final location.

Having said that, you have added a great deal of detail about the controversy. The full history of this debate should be captured in the article-space, not just on the Talk page. This is probably a significant enough discussion to deserve its own breakout article if you want to start one. Rossami (talk) 22:10, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

This user created an article The honeybee "dance language" (DL) controversy with the above text, and this is now up for AfD. As it stands, the article needs a strong wikifying, citing and balancing of the two sets of data - but I agree the controversy is easily worthy of its own article, albeit one better than the current one. If those more au fait with animal behaviour could comment at the AfD that would be very useful. Many thanks, Aquilina 22:52, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Both article and commentary are badly in need of revision. I don't have time to do it but please note recent article on use of lidar to prove waggle dance function. We need to but this nonsense debate to rest, it's becoming akin to arguing in defense of the flat earth theory.

I strongly agee with the above. Although she does so with vim and enthusiasm, Ruth Roisin is virtually the only voice propounding these views, which she tends to do at inordinate lenght. Some of her views (the denial any instinctive behavior, the notion that insects are incapable of behaviour which require an element of calculation) are distinctly eccentric. There is in fact, no more controversy over the existnce of a dance language in bees than there is over whether the earth is or is not flat. It is absurd that the 'odor plume' theory (which is a kind of bee equivalent of creationism, only less popular) takes up more room here than the dance language description. Cooke 15:19, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Likening critics to creationists is an effective ad hominem, but it isn't honest. The critics of a "dance language" are scientists, often distinguished scientists with long careers who have done seminal work and have spent decades in the field studying and working with bees, like Adrian Wenner. He may be wrong, but he is nothing like a creationist, and his views can't be dismissed just by calling them "absurd" or declaring them false. Such dogmatism is just the sort of thing that Wenner criticizes as "pathological science", demonstrating that such dogmatism has led the scientific community astray in the past, due to selective acceptance of confirming experiments using dubious methodologies. But science is best built on falsification, not confirmation,and people too in love with their theories fail to try to falsify them. -- 71.102.194.130 06:21, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, no. As far as I know there are NO, that is NO, peer-reviewed, replicable experiments which indicate, much less prove, that bees never, under any circumstances, interpret the physical movement of other bees. Which is the sum total of the 'odor-plume' argument. QED 88.97.15.184 23:44, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Unless there are strong objections, I shall trim the 'odor-plume' theory, which will probably do it no harm anyway, to make it more concise, but also briefer. 88.97.15.184 15:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Neural Map

I am doing my research in Artificial Intelligence, and I will soon be posting some of my findings (of insect intelligence) online. Does anyone know where would be the most appropriate place? Is there a Wikiproject Insect Neural Map I should consult? Paskari 13:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The most appropriate place is a refereed scientific journal. It certainly doesn't belong at Wikipedia, where original research is not allowed. -- 71.102.194.130 05:59, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Reading Bee's Minds

"When scouts returned to the hive to communicate their find, other bees refused to go with them, not expecting to find food in the middle of a lake"

Really? They "refused"? We know what bees "expect"? I guess their language skills really are quite amazing.

This article has a lot of problems, with its barely concealed contempt for critics of the "dance language" theory, but the section on Gould is the worst, reading like a press release. An encyclopedia should report the factual details of his experiments, and what interpretations he or other scientists have placed on them, but it should not make interpretive claims itself, especially not such absurdly anthropomorphic ones. -- 71.102.194.130 05:55, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Date of von Frisch's discovery

This article claims von Frisch discovered this behavior in 1947. However, according to this book I am reading (Harvey Einbinder, The Myth of the Britannica (New York: Grove, p. 235), von Frisch discovered this in 1923 -- although his research was confirmed after WWII. Looking at von Frisch's biographical article, his paper "Über die ‚Tiersprache|Sprache‘ der Bienen. Eine tierpsychologische Untersuchung" (published in Zoologische Jahrbücher (Physiologie) 40 (1923), 1–186) is mentioned, & from the title this appears to be the publication of his discovery. So is the 1947 date properly when his research was verified? -- llywrch (talk) 22:48, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

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Odor Olume - acknowledge text from Yates

Some of the text has been taken from section 6.21.2 of "Beekeeping Study Notes (Modules 5,6,7 & 8)" by J.D. & B.D. Yates, published 1997. ISBN 978-0-905652-72-6. The following entry is almost word for word. The book and authors need to be acknowledged. "The primary lines of evidence used by the odor plume advocates are experiments with odorless sugar sources which show that worker bees are unable to recruit to those sources[14] and logical difficulties of a small-scale dance (a few centimeters across) giving directions precise enough to hold the other bees on course during a flight that could be several kilometers long. Misreading by even a few degrees would lead the bee off course by hundreds of meters at the far end.[citation needed] Neither of these points invalidate the dance theory, but simply suggest that odor might be involved, which is indeed conceded by all proponents of dance theory.[citation needed] Critics of the odor plume theory counter that most natural nectar sources are relatively large—orchards or entire fields— so, precision may not be necessary or even desirable. They have also challenged the reproducibility of the odorless source experiment."

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