Hi...
I have a question about the evolution of recruiting behavior in honeybees. As
you know, when a worker finds a food source,  she returns to the hive and
conducts a quite elaborate dance. This informs the other workers as to the
direction and distance of the food supply. This behavior must have evolved in
a step-wise manner, beginning with some sort of pre-adaptation that was
gradually modified and elaborated. I have been unable to discover any
generally available references that describes this particular process. I
recognize that the actual steps may be unretrievable history, but I am simply
interested in PLAUSIBLE pathways, sufficient to demonstrate the adequacy of
step-wise evolution by natural selection to produce elaborate instinctual
behavior. Thanks for any assistance.
 ---yale
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