Adrian Wenner wrote:
>
> Mark Michel wrote (on BEE-L, in part):
>
>
>    May I insert a bit of reality.  As beekeepers and others watch the
> program, they might well consider a few relevant facts provided earlier on
> this network:
>
>  2) Apparently no one has been able to repeat James Gould's experiments and
> obtain his results (a requisite before one should accept such results);
>
>  4) Much evidence has accumulated that sharply conflicts with the original
> 1946 Karl von Frisch interpretation (Wenner, A.M. and P.H. Wells 1990, Kak,
> S.C. 1991, Vadas, R.L. Jr. 1994;
>
>  5) A 1937 von Frisch interpretation about odor search behavior has more
> validity than the highly touted language notion (Wenner, A.M. with K. von
> Frisch 1993).
>

>                                                         Adrian
>

  Hello Adrian and all,
 The Bee language interpretation in 1937 was about as good as it could
be at that time.
 Now we have had over a half a century to observe more and ask a lot of
questions.
 With the human mind , we can only understand the need for communication
for direction,
because that is what we need.Looking at the vertex angle of the figure
eight dance, fills our minds
with something we think we understand. It has to be more complex and a
few other factors must come to play.
Science gives us more questions with every answer.Why magnetite in there
bodies? We jump on that one
very fast. That gives the bees the ability to feel the magnetic force
fields of the earth.There ability to
smell pheromones in the air in parts per billion , is another wonderful
tool that they have to work with.
 I doubt very much that the bees use only one tool to communicate to
there sisters , the location
of a nectar source.Like just about everything else , we like to believe
something simple and call it the answer.
The dance is great, I like to watch it myself and wonder.The bees are
deeper than we can go, but it is a
lot of fun to observe them in there place on this earth.Nova will have
some people appreciating
how much the bees are in balance with nature.Maybe we will get a few
more beekeepers, because of the show.
God knows, we need more to help keep the eco-system in balance.
 I hope the program has many parts to stimulate the human imagination.
Some may not be facts (real truths)

 Best Regards
 Roy Nettlebeck
Tahuya River Apiaries
but it may not be too far out in left field.