Garth Cambray  wrote:
 
>I have just got back from showing a TV crew from a local
>satellite/national channel around the cape bee.
>
>We got some great shots and spent hours with the camera's right up
>close to open frames and after the first hour or so they did as I do
>and wore no gear - and nobody got stung.
>
>Anyhow, we wished to get pictures of the bees on a local aloe, aloe
>speciosa which has a red flower, but the open flowers are white. The
>bees were not on the aloes, despite the fact I had 20+ hives in the
>area. So I put some sugar water on a flower and held it in front of
>the hive. Then once a few bees were on it I took it back to the aloe
>stand, and within half an hour all the flowers were covered with
>bees. The next day the bees were there early working away.
>
>So the question is, do bees sometimes need to be 'educated' as to how
>and where a flow is??
 
**********
 
   Yes, bees need to become "educated" to a particular source of nectar.
For more information on that topic, see Chap. 7 of our book:  Wenner, A.M.
and P.H. Wells.  1990.  ANATOMY OF A CONTROVERSY: THE QUESTION OF A
"LANGUAGE" AMONG BEES."  Columbia University Press.
 
   In Garth's case, the honey bees they worked with had somehow never
discovered the aloe, despite the rich reward awaiting.
 
   Of special interest, though, the "sugar water" they used had no odor,
because table sugar (sucrose) has a vapor pressure of zero if prepared
properly.  However, by associating the odor of aloe with a sugar reward,
the bees in his colony could then readily find the source of the aloe
nectar.
 
   Pat Wells and I covered this topic in 1971:  Wells, P.H. and A.M.
Wenner.  The influence of food scent on the behavior of foraging honey
bees.  PHYSIOLOGICAL ZOOLOGY.  44:191-209. Don't look in any books or
reviews for mention of that contribution, because you won't find it.  At
the time, the topic of odor and foraging behavior of bees was taboo --- the
bee "language" dogma prevailed.
 
   On a related issue, I have already mailed the first part of a three part
series, one that details the importance of odor and the fact that odors can
only go downwind, to editor of THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL.  Hopefully, that
review should revive this topic after a nearly three decade dormancy.
 
   (Can you imagine?  People studying the foraging ecology of honey bee
colonies for a half a century and not considering the importance of wind
direction?)
 
                                                        Adrian
 
Adrian M. Wenner                    (805) 963-8508 (home phone)
967 Garcia Road                     (805) 893-8062  (UCSB FAX)
Santa Barbara, CA  93106
 
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* "To cling rigidly to familiar ideas is in essence the same as       *
*   blocking the mind from engaging in creative free play."           *
*                                                                     *
*                                  David Bohm and F. David Peat 1987  *
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