Jerry, have you read "The Buzz about Bees" by Jürgen Tautz?

On page 184 is a chapter called "A Telephone Line".  Here are some excerpts, including material familiar to many:

"The upper edges of the cells in the comb end in a bulged rim.  Low-amplitude vibrations of these rims, which spread across the comb, play a significant role in the exchange of information between bees in the complete darkness of the nest, where no optical signals can be used.  .....bees that dance over cells that are empty and transmit vibration well recruit three to four times as many visits to a feeding site, compared to those that dance on the smooth surfaces of cells that have been sealed.  The communication apparently functions far better on empty cells than on a firm flat surface....Capping the cells with a lid stops the spread of the oscillations, and no vibrations can be recorded from empty cells adjacent to the capped region when a dancer performs on capped cells.  However, if a capped area of cells is located like an island surrounded by open cells, then the vibrations in the open cells travel around the island.  The fact that the transmission of the best oscillation frequencies is independent of the cells being full or empty is surprising, and makes the structure of the comb and interesting study object for engineers...."

Excerpts from the next section:  "Tuning the Telephone Line":

"The temperature of the comb wax is the factor that has the greatest effect on tuning the telephone network.  The mechanical resistance of wax to oscillation decreases with rising temperature and it becomes increasingly easier for the bees to set the net on the rims of the cell walls in motion...Bees can be brought to the limit of their capacity to control the wax temperature if the entire bee colony be relocated and exposed to climatic extremes in which the entire nest is heated.  In such a case, the bees employ a strategy known, to the building industry, as the use of material additives.  If the wax temperature determining the oscillation properties of the cell walls is no longer appropriate, the bees mix propolis, as an additive, to the wax of the cell rims.  The proportions in which the wax and resin are mixed, and their spatial distribution, are adjusted so that the resonant properties of the wax lie in the correctly tuned range.....Some practices of beekeepers can unintentionally interfere with the telephone network of bees.  Apiarists, in order to facilitate the removal of combs from the hive, surround these with wooden frames.  A frame that completely encloses the comb on all sides restricts the motion of the surface network, which is not able to spread out across the rims of the cells, there no longer being a free edge that can expand and contract.  Bees on combs on which they do not dance are not disturbed by this. Such combs remain intact, and as the beekeeper installed them.  On combs where dances do take place, bees introduce large gaps between the wax and the wooden frames and the signal transmission is thereby fully restored."

(Not possible, of course, with Pierco etc)

The chapter goes on with many more interesting details of the nuances in signaling.

What I found interesting about the Royal Society paper were these discoveries:  1) Mechanoreceptors at the joints in the antennae can be used to detect electrical fields because the surface charge on the bee herself, when interacting with the surrounding electrical fields, causes her antennae to move....how cool is that!  2) The behavioral responses to these electrically-induced signals are amplified by sound, so that sound + electrical field fluctuations are the most powerful signal.

You've been doing a lot of work with whole-hive sounds, and that interests me very much.  I found this paper thought-provoking....bee talk is not just about audible sound and comb vibrations, but part of their "telephone" is electrical in nature.  Guess the bees were way ahead of Edison!

Christina

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