Sherry Medders asked for input, as follows:
 
>Leo Turley asked:  I am currently dealing with the homing ability of
>pigeons and >there has been
>many studies of this complicated process and it has now occurred to me that
>the process used by bees to locate their hive if very likely to be the same,
>or a similar process as used by pigeons. The thought has occurred to me that
>Bee Keepers may have struck on the solution through working on a miniature
>scale >and with what certainly appears to be with a great deal more
>scientific study >than has been devoted to the pigeon homing aspect.  I
>was wondering if you would
>be kind enough to point me in the right direction for any articles on
>the subject (assuming there are such articles) relating to the homing
>ability of bees.   Leo Turley [log in to unmask]
 
********
 
   Just about every hypothesis under the sun has now been proposed to
account for the homing ability of pigeons and honey bees.
 
   William Keeton obtained some experimental results that he published in
1956.  From those results he concluded that pigeons could orient by means
of the Earth's magnetic field.  He himself could never obtain similar
results, and he died before he managed to publish a retraction.
 
   B.R. Moore obtained all of Keeton's results from the widow and did a
comprehensive re-examination of the problem.  By combining all of Keeton's
results, the statistical significance in favor of magnetic orientation had
disappeared.  See:  Moore, B.R.  1988.  Magnetic fields and orientation in
homing pigeons: Experiments of the late W.T. Keeton.  Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences.  85:4907-4909.
 
   Once a hypothesis like that gets entrenched, though, it may well remain
in the popular literature for decades --- despite publication such as that
of Moore.  Just two weeks ago, about three-fourths of the thousands of
homing pigeons engaged in a competition got lost, according to accounts I
read in two newspspers.
 
*********
 
   An excellent study examined honey bee homing behavior:
 
Edward E. Southwick and Stephen L. Buchmann.  1995.  Effects of horizon
landmarks on homing success in honey bees.  The American Naturalist.
146:748-764.
 
   The beginning sentence of their abstract reads as follows:  "A
hypothesis is proposed and field data presented indicating that in
long-distance navigation, honey bee foragers use horizon landmarks to
determine the direction of their home site."
 
                                                        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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* "...in the drift of the years I by and by found out that a Consensus *
* examines a new [idea] with its feelings rather oftener than with its *
* mind.  You know, yourself, that is so.  Do those people examine with *
* feelings that are friendly to evidence?  You know they don't."       *
*                                                                      *
*                                                Mark Twain            *
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