Well, since Dr. Wenner has been so kind as to thank me personally, I'll
draw his (and other readers') attention to something of which he may not be
aware:
 
>5)  The relative weight of evidence.
>
>   One point seems to have become lost:  The burden of proof for those who
>wish to believe in bee "language" (a highly improbable possibility --- one
>and only one insect species that can interpret and act on symbols?) falls
>more heavily on proponents of that idea than on those who accept results in
>conflict with that view (such as the 16 points in my distributed abstract).
 
There are several different species of Apis, and two of them (andreniformis
and florea) even have a characteristic "dance" on a horizontal surface,
pointing towards the food source. It's more than "one insect species", it
is an entire evolutionary lineage (frequently considered a tribe). More
significantly, a recent paper should be noted:
 
Nieh, JC & Roubik, DW. 1995. A stingless bee (Melipona panamica) indicates
food location without using a scent trail. Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. 37:
63-70.
 
In essence, the "controversy" can now be expanded to include some other
social Apidae in which a returning forager inside the nest "produces pulsed
sounds while visibly vibrating her wings after returning from a good food
source. She is attended by other bees who cluster and hold their antennae
around her, following her as she rapidly spins clockwise and
counterclockwise". Does this description sound familiar to anyone? The
wrinkle here is that direction of the resource is thought to be indicated
"through pointing zig-zag flights outside the nest" (also should sound
familiar), or "foragers may also directly lead newcomers to the food
source". They can also recruit to a specific canopy level, in addition to
distance and direction.
        This is not some simple, trivial, matter here - it is a set of
complex behaviors present in one entire clade, and there is evidence for a
potentially homologous set of behaviors in a related clade. We also have
enough data on the stingless bees as a group to suggest an evolutionary
progression of recruitment behaviors to a point that is *remarkably*
similar to the simplest systems seen in Apis. I find this compelling
evidence that what we see in Apis is indeed an evolved form of recruitment
behavior, and not simply a matter of foragers reinforcing their own spatial
memory. I agree that the *amount* of information that is effectively
communicated is debatable, as is the *use* to which that information is put
(that is, there is no requirement that EVERY recruit is responding to dance
information, only that SOME do, nor is it required that the dance
information by itself is sufficient to find a precise spatial locality,
only that it narrows down the search area). I have every confidence that
folks will ultimately be able to resolve these issues to everyone's
satisfaction.
Sincerely,
 
Doug Yanega       Illinois Natural History Survey, 607 E. Peabody Dr.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA      phone (217) 244-6817, fax (217) 333-4949
 affiliate, Univ. of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Dept. of Entomology
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82