PV>From: Phil Veldhuis <[log in to unmask]>
  >Date:         Fri, 23 Feb 1996 13:14:29 -0600
  >Subject:      "Language"  ???
 
PV>Philosophers, such as myself, wonder what differentiates bee language
  >from human language.  And whether bee language, and indeed human
  >language, genuinely constitutes language at all.
 
Well, Phil, I ain't got no philosophizers in my bee kit, but bee's do
communicate. I think their language is more basic then some would like
to make it out to be. When the weather changes they have no problem
letting me know with their barbed rears. But like the dance I do
when this happens it could be misinterpret by any native American's
watching as a war dance as I fumble around for my veil and more smoker
fuel.
 
  When the wind is right and the aroma of citrus or eucalyptus nectar is
in the air, my bee's get the message an will fly miles to fill up,
sometime's so far that more in honey stores are used then honey gained
from the fresh nectar gathered. A warm afternoon during the almond bloom
will see bee's find orchards miles from any know beehives. There has
never been a almond orchard in California that did not have honey bees
in the flower's during bloom when the weather is good enough for flight
during bloom.
 
I guess the bees communicate with nature through odors, pheromones, and
the like. Some of these we beekeepers can learn to identify by
experience, others are probably easily identified by the bee's but
not experienced by us at all. I am sure each area has it's own set
of plants that can be identified by both beekeepers and bee's through
olfactory senses. One that has always's amazed me in central California
foot hills is the tar weeds which produce a powerful oder in our hot
dry late summers when in bloom. This one is so strong that just driving
into an apiary and crushing plants as you do will confuse the bee's
so much they will actually quit working. I have always wondered why
and could it be that the added burden of aromatic fumes disrupts the
bee's to the extent that bee's in the field can not find their way
back? The oder of tar weed plants is so strong that it may mask the
hive oder itself and in commercial apiaries, queenless and weak hives
are easily identified after a tar weed flow as they will be dead.
 
  I suspect that the first wave of nectar/pollen collector bee's out of
the hive each morning follow their noise to some extent, and if noting
is in the wind them range out and visit new flowers if they can be
found each morning and return with the good news or bad news and other's
get the sent of nectar or pollen from these bee's and follow it back out
in the field. The bee dance is fun, reminds me of beekeepers here in
this great desert when it rains, more then once I have joined other
beekeepers in the rain dance. One reason we all have tin roofs on our
honey house's is so we don't miss a drop, and it only takes a few to
empty the shop to stand in and marvel at the rain. We only have one
short wet season, and any rain is promise of honey in the bucket for us.
 
A honey wind is no fun to work in but one of the most productive
locations I ever had was so windy that I would have to take extra
help to load the bees out using a boom loader with two men on the
end of a rope, and these hives were not light. This spot was so windy
that one would not expect bee's to fly much at all. It was at time
enough strong enough to blow 150 lb hives of bees off the truck. I only
used the location for a few years as it was on a cultivated hillside and
I could not make it up the hill if it was being farmed. Anyway the wind
was so great here the bees would land on fence posts down wind from the
apiary and the wild buckwheat they were working after over flying the
apiary. These clusters of bee's would grow to be swarms as big as a man
and they would find their way home when the wind died down, sometimes
days later. On a moderate wind day the loaded bee's would come in and
land in the short dry grazed off grass fifty to one hundred feet from
the hives and march in like ants to the closest hives. Looked like a
real disaster from the drifting stand point but it evened out as the
wind changed directions from day to day. I don't know what this has to
do with bee language other then the signal that nectar was out there for
the collection was great enough to overcome elements that would keep a
prudent beekeeper at home. I believe much of this is on the wind, a
honey wind so to speak, bee's communicate with nature, and if they do a
dance it's my guess it could be more a celebration of a full pollen
pouch or honey sack, and not really a message to all the other
fielder's, as there really is not that much dancing going on in the
hives and you have to believe that if information was being passed it
was also being decoded and passed to all the field bee's in some way
not explained by the bee dance itself.
 
  The bee's do dance, thats a fact.. I have just seen too many things
that happen in a beehive and the environs it is kept concerning
pheromones and oder's that cause me to believe that communications if you
want to call it that is a complicated system of detecting and
interpretation of oders. I think some more scientific study is being
done on this in Europe at this time, maybe someday we will more about
these systems.
                        ttul Andy-
 
 
 
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