Chris said:

> Can you tell us more about this please?
> When I was studying quite some years ago the
> purpose of the organ was not well understood
> and was thought to be some sort of air speed indicator.

At risk of sounding like Dr. McCoy of the original
Star Trek, "I'm a physicist, not an entomologist".

About the best I can do is to cite the relevant research,
but I am not sure that the Johnston's Organ is a reliable
(or useful) indicator of airspeed to bees given the
experiments that were done to fool the bees with optical
illusions to make them think they were going further than
they really were ("optic flow"), and then observe them
dancing about a nectar source as if it were the longer
("fooled") distance away.  It would appear that as far
as distance/airspeed goes, "the eyes have it".  :)


  William Towne, Wolfgang H. Kirchner
  "Hearing in Honey Bees: Detection of
  Air-Particle Oscillations"
  Science 12 May, 1989 (#244: 686-688)

    (The usual level of stuff one finds
     in "Science".  Overview.)

  Wolfgang H. Kirchner, Claudia Dreller, William Towne
  "Hearing in Honeybees: operant conditioning
  and spontaneous reactions to airborne sound"
  Journal of Comparative Physiology A
  1991 (#168: 85-89)

    (A very neat little experimental set-up
     that proves that "airborne sound" matters,
     although I know of no examples where
     airborne sound is uniquely used by bees
     in a practical way.)

  C. Dreller, W. H. Kirchner
  "Hearing in honeybees: localization of the
  auditory sense organ"
  Journal of Comparative Physiology A
  1993 (#173: 275-279)

    (Proof that the Johnston's Organ is the
     organ used by bees to detect airborne sound,
     proven by removal of bee antenna on
     live bees under test.  Rated "V" for
     Vivisection.)

  D. C. Sandeman, J. Tautz, M. Lindauer
  "Transmission of vibration across honeycombs
  and its detection by bee leg receptors"
  Journal of Experimental Biology 1996
  (#199: 2585-2594)

    (Very gross - honeybee legs removed from
     bees and attached to electronics to
     detect vibration.  Rated at least PG-13,
     but clearly shows that vibrations matter
     also.)


                jim

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