Michael Palmer wrote:

>Why then do bees dance? For the fun of it?

"Many animals have remarkable structures and/or behavioral patterns. The
discovery of yet another remarkable event among animals will find a ready
acceptance in a basically optimistic audience. One need observe bees for
only a very short period of time before becoming impressed with the many
human-like actions they have. An anthropomorphic interpretation may soon
follow, even if subconsciously."  

In the case of bees, Wenner argued that the dance information "may well be
only a symptom of what a foraging bee has experienced as it flies between
hive and food place, not a signal for other bees.  But for von Frisch,
complex instincts demanded functional explanations. This deep-rooted
commitment to evolutionary explanations marked what was perhaps the most
unbridgeable difference between him and his young adversary. Wenner's
admission of the bees' complex dances followed by his steadfast denial of
their communicative function amounted to an incomprehensible, biological non
sequitur for von Frisch. 

Von Frisch: "What always amazes me is that he finds so many supporters in
the US, even though he maintains that the direction and distance information
goes unheeded by the alarmed hive mates. Especially since there are no
elaborate behaviors without specific functions. How could such a
differentiated dance have evolved if it had no biological significance?
Apparently Wenner and his followers don't trouble themselves with this." 

Griffin had been a long-time supporter of von Frisch.  He commented on the
debate with Wenner and Wells: "I continue to be amazed, even outraged, at
the stubborn refusal of Wenner and his colleagues to face the 'fact of life'
concerning your brilliant discoveries. I hope, but with no great confidence,
that [James] Gould's recent experiments will convince even them. But there
seems to be an almost ideological reluctance, bound up I suspect with the
strong current of behavioristic reductionism that has been so prominent
among behavioral scientists in America." Griffin linked Wenner's obstinacy
to his behaviorist tendencies but felt the situation was not hopeless. He
sensed that behaviorism had run its course and was giving way to other
approaches: "I am convinced that this [behaviorist] tide has turned

Gould in his Science piece recognized as much: "Some of the resistance to
the idea that honey bees possess a symbolic language seems to have arisen
from a conviction that 'lower' animals, and insects in particular, are too
small and phylogenetically remote to be capable of 'complex behavior." But
complex behaviors were coming back into vogue during the 1960s and '70s, and
many saw von Frisch's work as an important arrow in the anti-behaviorist's
quiver.

But the dispute over the bee dances was never just about whether the bees
locate foods by means of a dance language or simply by reacting to odor
cues. At stake were competing visions of animals and their behaviors and how
science could best come to know them. Von Frisch neither fought nor won the
battle by himself, as James Gould's decisive role in the debate suggests.
His theory offered an interpretive flexibility that allowed it to be
incorporated into a range of programs, like the sociobiological perspective
of E.O. Wilson or the more cognitive turn embraced by Donald Griffin.
Indeed, von Frisch’s case was picked up by a range of scientists
reacting to the overly restrictive behaviorism that had dominated much
of the century’s American studies of behavior.

FROM:

The Bee Battles: Karl von Frisch, Adrian Wenner and the Honey
Bee Dance Language Controversy
By TANIA MUNZ
History of Science
Princeton University
Journal of the History of Biology (2005) 38: 535–570

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