Dear Bee-liners,
 
Stan Sandler wrote:
>I have read somewhere that the scout bees dance directions for the
different locations they are exploring and that other bees are
encouraged to investigate.  When a "majority" of the scouts are
dancing for a particular homesite that is appealing this might lead to
the dance behaviour that you describe and the impetus to "take off".
This is, I always felt, a most fascinating "democratic" example of
sociality and hive mind, however, I no longer know where I read this,
or whether it is indeed experimentally corroborated, or just someone's
idea of what hive mind "should" be. <
 
Hear are two references, first one is most relevant. Second one has
some interesting thoughts about dance communication.
 
Authors : Lindauer,M.
Title   : Schwarmbienen auf Wohnungssuche
Source  : Z.vgl.Physiol.  37:263-324 (1955)
 
Authors : Lindauer,M.
Title   : Communication and orientation in honeybees
Source  : Monitore Zool.Ital.  20:371-379 (1986)
 
Comment: Selection of homesite needs some more investigations. From
naive point of view that could be example of how dance communication
is working as a language in community decision. My hypothesis is
that this is a result of competition of different arousal states of the
dancers, that means, the state which induces most vigorous and long
lasting dancing behavior weans in the swarm. We can expect that more bees
are looking for homesite of the dancers, which attract more bees. It
would be nice to verify this hypothesis. Lindauer results are also in
favourfavour of this hypothesis even though they were explained differently.
 
     Janko
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Dr. Janko Bozic
University of Ljubljana
Biotechnical Faculty, Department of Biology
Vecna pot 111, p.p. 2995
1001 Ljubljana
SLOVENIA
tel. (386) 61-265-584, (386) 61-265-585
fax. (386) 61-273-390
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