>>In the darkness and crowdedness of a hive, the individual bee can't see anything, and has various olfactory, tactile,  gustatory,  pheromonal, vibratory, and auditory cues.

On the other hand, it's not all just about cues and responses.  Bees measure (cell sizes, potential nest site size) and calculate (distance, route, forage quantity) even if it's by some relative scale.  This study suggests they might be able to outperform humans in some respect. :o)

http://www.springerlink.com/content/576858p219pr3q01/

>>The more that we understand the cues and responses, the more that we can understand how it appears that a colony "thinks."

Sure.  I did not mean bee *thinking* in human terms per se.  Clearly, bees gather cues that lead to their *decisions* which we *see* by their responses.  They do *measure* frequency and magnitude of clues and use *reason* and *interpolation* to reach conclusions.  Some scientist say they can think in the abstract: 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/apr/19/highereducation.biologicalscience

I often find myself reminding myself that despite the fact that I can squash them to death and steal their honey with relative ease and a lack of serious consequence to mysef, honey bees aren't *dumb* creatures. :)  

Waldemar

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