Could you please give me info about ethology lists.
Thanks
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A copy of something I posted to the Social Insect and Ethology (animal
behavior) lists and to Dr Casey at Brandeis University.  Do any practising
beekeepers have any thoughts and information on this question?
 
To Dr Casey:
 
" This is a long shot but you seem like someone who might be interested in
the following.
 
A few years ago Chauvin, the French student of social insects, suggested
that bees leave the hive in what he called "cadres".  I did some timing of
bees leaving a hive to see if they left at random, or in "clumps" of bees
leaving together, but without a clear answer (my set-up was rather
primitive).
 
Of course, a random pattern of leaving could to the casual observer look
like bees leaving in groups, just by chance.
 
More recently I wondered if the timing of bees leaving might not exhibit
some sort of chaos behaviour, that is maybe it is "a bit" random and "a
bit" ordered?
 
Anyway, does anybody have an opinion or knowledge on the question of the
randomness or otherwise of bees' leaving the hive?  Perhaps someone might
be interested in making some observations.
 
The reason I am responding to you, Dr Casey , is that you seem to be
interested in biological systems as complex systems.  It has always seemed
to me that the "leaving behaviour" of bees over time would repay study from
the angle of chaos theory and complex systems research."
 
 
Dr Julian O'Dea
Canberra
Australia
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