>On the other hand, there is a mountain of evidence that particular
behavioral traits are heritable (hygienic behavior, aggression,
susceptibility to disease).

Being heritable does not exclude that heritability from being due to
epigenetics.  Indeed, all three of your above examples plausibly be due to
epigenetics, rather than genetics.  Transgenerational epigenetic immune
priming has been demonstrated in bees.


> >And no evidence that I can think of where a specific behavior can be
> shown to be passed from one colony to another, or even from bees in the
> same colony via some sort of epigenetic mechanism.


There is evidence in other taxa, including insects.


> >Unless you include learned behaviors, but that isn't really what is
> generally meant by epigenetic, which conventionally refers to cellular
> processes such as methylation.
>

Exposure to alarm pheromone has been demonstrated to affect methylation of
brain cells, thus changing behavior.

I strongly suspect that epigenetics play a large role in bee heritability.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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