Barry Donovan reiterated a message he had given earlier (here in
small part): "[It] is consistent with the use by these bees of the
information to avoid
the already-discovered source."  (An interesting rationale, but not
very scientific.)

    Mea McNeil provided input on Tom Seeley's response to her
questions, including his mention of Figure 3.7 in his book (which
really reveals little about the issue).

    Seeley's response to Mia (as she posted it) was loaded with
qualifications (including, "Evidently, a dance follower learns only
the general vicinity of the recruitment target, she flies to this
location, and then often has to execute a lengthy search to pinpoint
the recruitment target."), a statement that contrasts sharply with
his own statement in the book, as follows:

"When a worker bee discovers a rich source of pollen or nectar, she
is able to recruit nest mates to it and thereby strengthen her
colony's exploitation of this desirable feeding site.  The principal
mechanism of this recruitment communication is the waggle dance, a
unique behavior in which a bee, deep inside her colony's hive,
performs a miniaturized re-enactment of her recent journey to a patch
of flowers.  Bees following the dance learn the distance to the
patch, the direction it lies in, and the odor of the flowers, and can
translate this information into a flight to the specified patch."

    Which is it?  Do bees "fly directly out" as given in the original
hypothesis, or do they search about for a long time, as specified in
the odor-search model?

    The renowned science philosopher, Karl Popper, wrote, "Some
genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld
by their admirers--for example, by introducing AD HOC some auxiliary
assumption, or by re-interpreting the theory AD HOC in such a way
that it escapes refutation."

    Likewise, Thomas Kuhn (physicist and philosopher) echoed Popper's
conclusion, as follows:

"...scientists ... will devise numerous articulations and AD HOC
modifications of their theory in order to eliminate any apparent
conflict." and "[although scientists] may begin to lose faith and
then to consider alternatives, they do not renounce the paradigm that
has led them into crisis."

    The bottom line remains as to the facts (long search times and
small percentage of success) that I posted on 5 October.  By
contrast, those results mesh very well with the von Frisch
odor-search convictions of the late 1930s and early 1940s, as well as
with our odor search model (as spelled out in our 1990 book and more
concisely in the following URL):

http://www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/az1991.htm

    The bottom line remains, though:  Beekeepers have not benefited
one bit in regard to their beekeeping operations by using the dance
language hypothesis during the past half century of its existence.
That fact carries more weight than virtually any of the rhetoric we
have had on the subject these past few years.

                                                        Adrian
--
Adrian M. Wenner                (805) 963-8508 (home office phone)
967 Garcia Road                 [log in to unmask]
Santa Barbara, CA  93103        www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/index.htm

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*
*    "We not only believe what we see:
*  to some extent we see what we believe."
*
*                           Richard Gregory (1970)
*
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