From Randy-
This brings to mind that (at least some) animals can also hold memories in their bodies, independent of their brain.  When I was in junior high school, I attempted to replicate a recent experiment in which researchers had found that planarian flatworms (which can regenerate a decapitated head), could be trained to a conditioned stimulus.  And that if such trained worms were decapitated, that the headless body, after regrowing a head, retained the learned response (reviewed at
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/216/20/3799 ).
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Another interesting experiment done with planarian worms - After being trained to run a maze, the planarian were then sacrificed and fed to other planarian.  The latter group learned the maze more rapidly than the original group.  Humm..   Now bees don't eat bees, but they do feed developing brood a portion of their body produce in the glands of the nurse bees.  Could learning be transferred through this substance the same as if the nurse bees were cannibalized?  

We have often be told of instances where bees seem to know their beekeeper.  A learned behavior passed on to successive generations?  Could mean hives have been raised by nurse bees that learned they needed to be defensive?  Perhaps genetics is overrated!   The old adage about telling the bees when their beekeeper dies could be an interpretation of the bees learning to expect their beekeeper.  

We talk about the colony as a superorganism.  Perhaps this is an unexplored way a colony develops skills and attitudes as a very complex organism.  Better honey producers...  ankle biters....   I wonder if Jerry's explosive detecting bees would be trained more easily if tended by nurse bees in trained explosive-detecting hives.

If you would like to read on -

McConnell, JV. 1962. Memory transfer through cannibalism in planarians. Journal of Neuropsychiatry 3 (Supplement no. 1): 542-548

Hartry, AL et al. 1964. Planaria: memory transfer through cannibalism re-examined. Science 146: 274-275

Larry Krengel
Marengo, IL
USA

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