The 2 sides seem firmly arrayed along the lines of "odour theory" and
"language theory".
I would have thought that both would have been possible in a
complementary way.
The language theory to get the bees to roughly the right area and the
odour theory to allow the bees to home in on the specific food source.
Whilst it might seem a little exotic that an insect the size of a bee
could contain  the capability for language, we should certainly not
doubt Mother Nature's ingenuity.
Whilst copper bottomed proof for a bee language (in the sense normally
understood -mapping,distance etc), may not yet have been obtained, this
should not stop investigation -as in all scientific investigation the
possibilities improve with the sensitivity of the instrumentation. The
"mapping" language theory certainly fulfills certain "desireable
features" -location of food sources upwind for instance but of course
desireability does not make it so.
I would have thought that a rather awkward fact for the odour theorists
however, is that bees "dance" in a quite specific way - if they only had
to spread the odour message, a severe , simple vibration would seem more
efficient
If the bees are communicating by odour messages, that could also of
course be construed as language.
Finally as a practical (very small scale) beekeeper I am thankful that
Mother Nature has provided the bees with an efficient way of locating
their food source, the exact method is of rather secondary importance,
but of course of great interest.
Alan Riach
Edinburgh
Scotland

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