BEE-L Archives

Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

BEE-L@COMMUNITY.LSOFT.COM

Options: Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
Peter L Borst <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 24 Oct 2013 00:07:15 -0400
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (25 lines)
So if individual bees can only learn something once, and cannot seem to
re-learn basic things like "what does my home terrain look like?"  I can't
imagine that they are capable of "choice", in that making a "choice"
requires an ability to change one's mind about an issue based upon new
evidence, and it seems that bees can't do that for foraging or homing.

I don't agree with any of this. Bees constantly re-learn. For example, when the seasons change, the environment looks completely different from one month to the next. They re-learn on a regular basis to orient in a constantly changing world. 

Second, our ability to imagine what insect consciousness is like has absolutely no bearing on what it really is like. The more imagination we bring, the closer we may get or the further away we may go. But saying "I can't imagine" is a full stop.

We realize the honey bee colony is capable of a great deal of information gathering, processing and decision making. The miniaturization of microprocessors hints at how this is possible with very small brains, assembled into a group.

The question here was whether their choices were biased by the manner in which they seek, which would hardly be surprising since honey bee colonies are highly optimized. They can't afford to spend a lot of time on dead end leads, with the whole family hanging on a branch somewhere. 

Foraging for food is an entirely different matter, an established colony can spare hundreds of scouts to find food wherever it is. A swarm on a branch has to act quickly with limited information. They make a decision as a group through persuasion and compromise, something humans seem to be failing at lately. 

That is what is amazing about Tom Seeley's work, he shows how the bees gather and evaluate information. Tom Seeley, Kirk Visscher and all the others are doing great work that expands our understanding. I would be very surprised to hear any of them say "I can't imagine" or "that can't be".

Pete

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

ATOM RSS1 RSS2