If you have no time to read this, at least go to this link and read the 
article :http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7292334.stm

I was labelling honey late last night (labelling has become a very time 
consuming business as I now have to put on four labels: the main label, 
the nutrition label, the certified tracking number lid sealing label and 
the Certified 100% British Columbia Honey label.  If anyone knows where I 
can buy an inexpensive labelling machine please let me know) while 
listening to Ideas on CBC radio. The program was discussing how biologists 
decided back around 1900 that the human body must be similar to a machine. 
They just had to discover the parts to the machine to describe how it 
worked. So the idea of a part named a gene that held a blueprint of the 
body came along before genes were discovered. Then genes were discovered 
and everyone said 'fine, fine, good, good, just as we predicted'. I'm just 
a wee bit over my head in discussing this and maybe someone like Peter 
Borst can step in and wipe the floor with me but this was the general gist 
of the program. 

But now, as they learn more and more about the human genome and genes 
themselves, they are discovering that genes are not near as cut and dried 
as they thought. In fact it is getting increasingly difficult to define 
just what a gene is. And if you can't define something, maybe just maybe 
it doesn't actually exist. Some are suggesting biology is entering a 
period similar to that of physics when Einstein came along and upset all 
the established theories of how things work.

I couldn't help apply all this to how science views honeybees. We have 
always thought of them as robots reacting to various stimuli. Can anyone 
think of any observation or experiments in beekeeping that cannot be 
explained by the robot model?

A few years ago I read a long chewy article in the New Yorker. If I 
remember right it was written by a women who had become a beekeeper after 
having a career as a librarian. Maybe someone more familiar with the 
article can confirm this but I think I remember reading that she once had 
a bunch of bees clustered against a window screen in her honey house. And 
some bees came along and landed on the outside of the screen and after a 
little 'conflab', the bees inside crawled across the ceiling of the honey 
house to a crack somewhere off in the dark and escaped to the outside. I 
have never seen anything like that but if I did I would have a hard time 
explaining it with the robot model.

The only other 'maybe' I can come up with is an experiment I was told of 
in which a researcher shook bees onto drone foundation; the queen had 
nothing but drone cells to lay eggs in. After a period of laying drones 
the queen started laying fertilized eggs in the drone cells. Either this 
was a conscious decision by the queen or evolution had somehow programmed 
her for just such a situation.  

I am currently reading a book titled "Theater of the Mind, Raising the 
Curtain on Consciousness" by Jay Ingram. It is interesting how complicated 
and difficult it is to describe exactly what consciousness is. Some say an 
animal has it if it can demonstrate an awareness of self. Jay gives the 
example of the scrub jay which hides it's food (insects) in sand for 
future use. Experiments have shown that if a jay knows it has been 
observed doing this by a neighbouring bird it will go back later after the 
neighbour has flown off and re-hide the insects. So is it putting itself 
in it's neighbours shoes so to speak? 

In talking to bird researchers I have learned of experiments done on birds 
in which a male is caged and allowed to watch as his
social mate is visited by other males (seriously, people have done 
this),or if the female is just removed for an hour or so (indicating, I 
guess,that she's been off fooling around), the resident male will reduce 
the amount he invests in feeding the chicks later (since he figures they're
less likely to be his I'm assuming). All robotic and unconscious?

I had been thinking about all this when someone sent me the link to the 
article on ants above. So it makes me wonder if any of you have ever 
observed behavior in bees that is difficult to explain with the robot 
model? And can you think of any experiment that would prove or disprove 
consciousness in bees?

Ted

Thinking: I might not be conscious after all.

    

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