crpost wrote:

> awcannon wrote:
>
> In the event of DCA's it is perhaps slightly simpler - they are drawn by
> the
> queen pheromone towards a general area.

Nope, sorry. The DCAs form whether there are flying queens or not. I have
forwarded this thread to Dr. Loper, he will hopefully jump in and provide some
radar insights. Landmarks seem to play the greatest role in DCA formation. We
tried to prove a link with magnetic anomolies in the earth, but could never get
a solid connection. As seen on radar, the drones flow like water above
treelines and branch off to swirls at intervals, sometimes over open areas,
sometimes not. Much like a meandering stream. One thing that surprised us was
the lack of boundaries - the drone flight paths just go on and on, combining
and dividing. Now that we can put short movies on the internet, I should try to
capture some segments of Dr. Loper's and Wayne Wolf's radar footage for wider
distribution. The patterns are really beautiful. Stay tuned - I'll post a link
if I set up a radar movie site.
-----------------------------------------------------------
John F. Edwards
"Feral Bee Tracker and AHB Identifier"
Carl Hayden Bee Research Center
Tucson, Arizona 85719
http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov/home/edwards/edwards.html