> There's also the possibility of the color affecting the internal temperature once hit by the sun, ie, earlier morning warmup and the foragers would be more active earlier, no?

Of course, that is a possibility, but intuitively it seems to me that the internal hive temps would not be radically affected by the hive color, unless they were in a very sunny, hot location. I think his idea that bees drift to dark colors is probably correct. 

Bees also drift to stronger colonies, which causes any subtle tendency to become greatly magnified (like the tendency to drift to ends of rows, or corners of apiaries). 

Beekeepers and researchers battle endlessly to try to keep their colonies of uniform strength, whereas in nature, colonies (like people) vary considerably even in the same environmental conditions. 

Again, what may have been a slight difference at first can turn into a major one, over time. This is one of the key evolutionary principals, as we all know.

Pete

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html