Hello Ruth & All,

Ruth said:
When I stated that you are "still a DL supporter", I meant, in the face of a
very large body of very strong evidence against the DL hypothesis.

What strong body of evidence?  If the evidence was so   overwelming the
beekeeping books would have been rewriten by now.

Simply put both DL and "odor alone" are simply *hypothesis.*

Hypothesis:
1. An UNPROVED scientific CONCLUSION drawn from known facts.

Come up with some new facts and we will take another look at DL verus odor
alone.

Ruth further said:
 Such evidence does support the "odor alone" hypothesis, because there are
no other alternatives.

Come on Ruth "no other alternatives?"

I love telling my favorite researcher / beekeeper story.

Years ago before varroa ever came to Missouri I was shown a dead varroa mite
under a microscope. I large picture of a varroa was displayed by the
microscope.

After looking in the microscope I asked why the varroa on the slide (Varroa
d.) was oblong and the picture of the varroa ( varroa J.)showed a ROUND
varroa.

Ruth said;
The "odor alone" hypothesis requires the dance, because, contrary to v.
Frisch's belief,

Important point that you believe that odor alone requires the dance as most
people believing the DL hypothesis believe the bees will find the reward
even without the odor!

Ruth said:
Incidentally, I am truly relieved to find that the reference ODea cited to
the effect that recruitment by dancing foragers does not exist in
Africanized honeybees appears to be in error

I spent two hours on the phone last night with one of the  foremost AHB
researchers. He said plenty of DL in the AHb he studied in many countries
for the USDA.

Ruth said:
. Of course, I never doubted that it had to be in error. The low dancing
frequency observed in AHB need not be a rule, because dancing frequency is
affected by very many different factors.

The waggle dance is affected by very many different factors?

Enjoyed the discussion Ruth!

Bob trying to get the last word in!

Bob

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