To Jerry, Hi,

While I do not question your experience with the disturbing effects of
attaching transponders to honeybees, I also do not question the very
different experience Riley et al. (Nature 2005) had, in this respect. I also
find it impossible to accept that the radar-tracks they obtain can, in any
way be explained as a result of problems caused by the transponders. (Where
I have a serious problem, and for some very good reasons too, is with the
identity of the radar-tracked bees. This, in spite of assurance from the
authors about the procedures, which would have exempted any re-recruited
trained forager from being included among the bees tracked in this study.)

I believe I can explain the seeming contradiction between your experience,
and the experience of Riley et al., with transponders; on the basis of the
specific honeybee-strains used.

We know that there must be considerable differences of detail in the
physiology of flight among different honeybee species, and strains. We also
know that the various dance-forms in any species, or strain, are actually
variations on one and the same theme, where round dances change to figure-8
waggle-dances, to figure S waggle-dances, as the speed of the dance slows
down, i.e. as the bees end up more exhausted when they return to the hive,
from a greater distance.

If  we now restrict ourselves only to different strains of the species A.
mellifera, where workers of different strains are about the same size and
weight, we know that they have what v. Frisch called different "dialects",
i.e. that bees of different strains dance at a different speed for one and
the same distance. As  a result of that, the round dance-range, i.e. the
distance for which no round dances are performed anymore, differs from one
strain to another. It is close to 100m. from the hive for the Austrian
honeybee-strain, less than 20m. from the hive for the Italian
honeybee-strain, and some 65m. for American bees, which seem to be a mix of
various other strains.

What this means is that, in spite of being of about the same size and
weight,  Austrian honeybees (which Riley et al. used in Germany), end up
being less exhausted than the same distance from the hive. I.e., in some
sense, the Austrian honeybees are "better" fliers; which could enable them
to manage in spite of the transponders attached to them; which your American
bees were unable to do.

I could, in no way, qualify in what way the Austrian honeybees are "better"
fliers, because no one has ever even begun to study the flight-physiology of
different honeybee-strains to an extent that would make it possible to
identify the differences, which obviously must exist.

Sincerely,
Ruth Rosin ("Prickly pear")

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