On Tue, 5 Mar 2002 11:55:13 -0500, Karen Oland <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
 If
>this excess brain power were being used for much of anything else, one
would
>expect the drones to have figured out how to quit getting tossed out of the
>hive in the fall, by now.

And if my brain was as big as my one and only partners I would have figured
out..... how to stop getting tossed out of my hammock. I agree it is hard
to argue that there is much intelligence in drones when they will even try
to mate with a nice smelling clothes pin. However I think a good example of
worker intelligence is how they learn to work alfalfa. Young bees get
knocked on the head by the spring loaded stamen but learn to avoid this by
going into the blossom from the side.

Any discussion of beekeeping intelligence reminds me of the article in the
November issue of Discover magazine in which the author, Barbara Shipman,
theorizes that bees can sense quarks. ( search 'quantum bees' for the bee-l
discussion on this) Just thinking about quantum mechanics makes my brain
feel like a seed of grass but I recently heard a radio program on this
topic. (Ideas on CBC) It suggested that the theory of quantum mechanics
(which is the best theory physicists have to explain how our universe
works) predicts that sub-atomic particles must exist in all their various
forms at the same time. This would mean that instead of living in a
universe we actually live in a multiverse. The analogy they used to explain
this was a row of houses (where each house represents a universe that
cannot see the house on either side of it) with a common basement. In the
basement subatomic particles exist in all their various forms at once, but
for some reason when we look into the basement we can only see one of these
configurations at any given moment. Statistically, this would mean that
there are actually an infinite number of say, Allen Dicks in the multiverse
which could explain how he seems to do so much. My question to bee-l is how
would you devise an experiment to prove or disprove that bees can somehow
sense subatomic particles? BTW, I don't have the answer.

I am around 52N,122W. After an easy winter, spring won't come. Eight days
ago it was -27C, then started to get above freezing during the day until
today it is back down to -12C with a couple of inches of snow. Only sign of
spring is the return of bald eagles (now that calving has started they are
after the afterbirth) and starlings. Hive survival appears to be above 98%
so far but I have yet to opened any hives for a closer look.Ted