Dear list.
Several mails on the list have tried to sum up what is known and not
known to be scientific fact(s) about bee dances. After reading what I
could lay my hands on - including material kindly supplied by Adrian
Wenner - I´m sure that there a a lot of matters still to be sorted out
before we know (..more about..) how bees communicate. And for sure, it
is one of the most interesting topics.
For one reason or another, I seem to listen more to - and learn more
from - people´s explanations when they are not in the form af
political
statements but rather dealing openly with the doubts and uncertainties
involved with any dealing with a complicated subject.
May I suggest that instead of generalizations, we could focus on
specific topics and thereby adding pieces to the overall puzzle. I
think it goes well with the line of informed discussion: laying your
piece on the table with pros and cons and telling what you see - but
not
what everybody else is supposed to see!

As I don´t regard myself as being able to supply pieces to the
language/not language discussion, I ask
questions:

1.
Peter Borst quotes Kirchner and Towne:  "Novel experiments, such as
training bees to respond to sounds and recruiting them using a robot,
have ended several debates surrounding the dance language."

Could You, Adrian Wenner, please put Your piece on the table and sum
up very shortly: what precisely was wrong with the experiments with
"robot bees" and/or the conclusions made?

2.
Correct me, if I´m wrong: It seems to me, that in experiments on
recruiting using odeur (Wenner, Lindauer, Seeley ...), the
concentration of the smelling ingredient is very different? It would
be interesting to hear comments on the concentrations. Do some
experiments disfavor the role of odeur by keeping the concentration
low or others favor it by keeping them high. Is there such a thing as
a realistic level of odeur comparing to natural conditions?

3.
Speaking of natural conditions: Could it be, that the area where some
have experimented favoured a conclusion that odeur is less important?
And did the areas where others have experimented favor the opposite
conclusion? As a European, I´m not familiar with american geography in
detail, but I guess that a plains area and a small valley would
emphasize different aspects?

Bee gretings,

Lars Hansen
Denmark