Ruth states:
> No one ever did, or could experimentally confirm that they use any spatial information about the location iof any food.

As I mentioned earlier, the source of the discrepancy between Dr.
Wenner's results and those of von Frisch appears to have to do with
environmental conditions. Honey bees do not *always* use the
information encoded in the dance; they particularly don't use it if
and when they don't need it. Again, I would compare this to our
general inclination to ignore advertising, except when are interested
in a specific product.

Gavin Sherman & P. Kirk Visscher wrote:

To test the effect of the dance language, we established a
diffuse-light treatment in which bees performed completely disoriented
dances, and an oriented-light treatment in which bees performed
well-oriented dances.

We compared foraging success at natural food sources by measuring the
mass of colonies while each foraged under alternating diffuse- and
oriented-light treatments. One pair of colonies had diffuse-light and
one pair had oriented-light treatments, and we exchanged treatments
approximately every 11 days for 8 months.

Overall, during periods in which they had oriented dances, these small
colonies averaged greater food collection than when their dances were
disoriented, but this effect varied significantly in different
seasons. During summer, colonies gained similar mass under either
treatment.

During autumn, they similarly lost mass regardless of treatment;  but
during winter, colonies gained mass while under the oriented-light
treatment and lost mass while under the diffuse-light treatment.

These results demonstrate that under natural foraging conditions the
communication of distance and direction in the dance language can
increase the food collection of honeybee colonies.

They also robustly confirm that bees use this directional information
in locating the food sources advertised in the dance. However, the
study also demonstrates that this advantage does not always hold.

-- 
Honeybee colonies achieve fitness through dancing
Gavin Sherman & P. Kirk Visscher
NATURE | VOL 419 | 31 OCTOBER 2002
www.nature.com/nature

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