> Riley et al., however, very deliberately
> EXCLUDED THE USE OF ANY SCENTED FOOD.
> HAD THEY USED SCENTED FOOD THEIR PRESUMABLY
> DISCOVERED DL WOULD QUICKLY DISAPPEAR INTO THIN AIR.

> ...Under such conditions the mowed grass might not have
> dried enough to lose all odor-traces for honeybees...


So, let's get this straight:

Whenever someone sets up a foraging test using
scented feed, Ruth will criticize the test as being
nothing but a demonstration of "odor" as the actual
mechanism used by the bees get to the feeder.

On the other hand, when care is taken to avoid scents,
Ruth claims that if scents would have been used, the
dancing would somehow be irrelevant, due to the presence
of odors. Even when the wind direction is such that the
bees are flying "downwind" to the feeder, this is not
sufficient for Ruth.

On yet another hand (we are running out of hands here)
Ruth insists that the odor of grass might somehow be
sufficient alone to provide bees with an odor to "home in"
upon (but not always find) an unscented feeder, even though
the same odor would be present over a very large area, at
least as large as, perhaps larger than the entire area of
the bee flight range being tracked.  (If this were true,
bees would not be flying directly to the general area of
the feeder, with some fraction of the total bees unable
to find the feeder itself.)

To summarize, Ruth's stated views appear to be that if scents
are overtly used, odor is the mechanism used, not dance.
If no scents are overtly used, then the data is somehow
invalid due to the lack of odor, except that she also wishes
to simultaneously claim that odors of things like grass
are actually being used to ALMOST locate a unique unscented
feeder in a unique location within a large area permeated by
this consistent odor, even when the feeder is downwind of the hive.

To summarize the summary, there appears to be no possible
test that will satisfy Ruth, as her criticisms are appear to
be contradictory, mutually exclusive, and do not explain the
actual flight paths of the bees tracked.  Even a test where
the bees are apparently "fooled" by being released away from
the hive into flying downwind to a location where there is no
feeder is apparently insufficient in Ruth's view.

James Kilty pointed out that the link I provided to the
full text and diagrams of the study currently being critiqued
by Ruth was mangled by the listserv.  He provided this
shorter link that should survive the attack of the line-wrap monster.
http://www.honeybee.neurobiologie.fu-berlin.de/column/publications.html
(The specific paper is number "21", at the top of the web page.)

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