>Until the bees can be tracked so that AT LEAST the group leaving
>is established as identical with the group returning
 
I didn't think that anything in my posting indicated that the groups
_were_ the same coming and going-- I thought the place to start would be
in determining whether foragers actually do leave and/or return in groups
(which I suspected that they did-- and which a posting I received from
Jerry Bromenshank confirms with his own observations and the results of
"research published in Apidologie using BeeScan, a Belgium produced, 32
channel bee counter, (which) documented the same observation, bees come in
waves")-- regardless of whether they return in the _same_ group (which I
suspect they don't).
 
>...speculation as to WHY they do(what we do not know WHETHER they do)...is
>premature.
 
Whether they do seems to have been established in the affirmative--
although I haven't seen the article myself.  _Now_ it would be interesting
to see if they _are_ the same groups coming and going (again, I doubt it).
If they are the same groups that would indicate one set of answers to
"why?"-- if they are not that would imply a different answer.
 
And you kind of have to speculate as to WHY before you can do this kind of
research so you can come up with a hypothesis that you try to falsify (if
you _don't_ falsify it that is an indication that your guess as to why
_may_ be correct).  My own intuitive, "educated" guess, as I mentioned
before, is that it has something to do with the behavioral thresholds for
orientation to the nest entrance (when a group returns-- which, of course,
can include the influence of breezes as Allen Dick mentioned) or in the
proximal stimulation to initiate foraging (when a group leaves).  At the
moment I can't think of anyway to test this.  (It would be nice to "see"
how the pheromone plume issuing from a colony fluctuates-- which I imagine
has a lot to do with the comings and goings <yes, it's just imagining but
trying to think like an insect is fun> but that issue is so complex
and so different from the sensory world that we humans live in that I
can't think of anyway reasonable way of doing anything other than
measuring the brute air flow in and out of colony.) Any ideas?
 
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