The article by Su et al. in PLoS One 3(6), 2008, claims that, in a mixed
colony, with workers of 2 different honeybee species, using different
"dialects", recruits of the one species were able to correctly interpret the
information relayed in the dances of foragers of the other species, that use
a different"dialect". My initial intuitive  response was a violent
rejection!

Only later, upon a careful examination, did I realize that there was a very
good reason for my intuitive reaction:

Staunch "dance language" (DL) supporters are convinced that honeybee dances,
(that are not learned behavior), are "instinctive", (i.e. genetically
predetermined); that honeybees have a DL which utilizes the spatial
information contained in foragers'-dances; that different species and
strains of the genus *Apis*, use different "dialects' of this DL; and that
honeybees have an "instinctive" ability to correctly interpret Dl
information that is relayed in the "dialect" of their own species. I accept
none of this, but I will not explain why, because this is not the point I
wish to expose here.

The point I want to expose is this: Theoretically speaking, the results
obtained by Sue et al. could be due to recruits having somehow acquired the
ability to correctly interpret information relayed in a different "dialect",
or, (as DL opponents claim), recruits simply do not use the information, so
the "dialect" in which the information is relayed, makes no difference.

To a DL opponent the second explanation is the only one acceptable. It is
also the more parsimonious of the two possible explanations. There is,
however, a far more basic reason to opt for the second explanation. The
reason is that the first explanation requires honeybees to achieve the
impossible! In order to correctly interpret information relayed in a foreign
"dialects", honeybees must know that dialect. Assuming that they can
"instinctively" know the "dialect" of their own species, they still can, in
no way, "instinctively" know a foreign "dialect". The only way they can
know  this is by carrying out the kind of scientific research that enabled
Su et al. to learn that; or else by reading the article that Sue et al.
published about that research. No one is prepared to even remotely consider
the possibility that honeybees can conduct scientific research, or learn by
reading the publication of other scientists. This leaves us with the only
possible solution, i.e. the conclusion that honeybees do not use any DL
information!

-- 
Sincerely,
Ruth Rosin ("Prickly pear")

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