In a post of Feb. 28, Fischer, a staunch "dance language" (DL) supporter,
brings up what he interprets as a new proof for the existence of the
honeybee DL, based on a study on nectar-scents, published by Robert Raguso,
in Ecology of 2004.

Raguso tested nectars from 7 different types of flowers polinated by
honeybees, and found scenet in only 4 of them. Fischer assumes that these
means that the remaining 3 types of nectar are odorless. He, therefore,
concludes that if honeybee recruits, (that have no visual information about
the source visited by their dancing foragers), find odorless nectar, they
can do so only by using DL information.

The conclusion, (like all other evidence for the existence of the honeybee
DL), is based on none other than wishful thinking. Fischer's assumption that
if Raguso found no scent in 3 types of nectar, this means that those types
are odorless, is totally ground. In fact, Raguso makes clear that the
methods he used are not sensitive enough for each case. He explicitly
states:

"The sampling methodology was suitable for strongly scented flowers with
tubular corollas or spurs and large nectar volumes. Alternative methods will
be needed to study umbels or capitula of minute flowers with negligible
nectar volumes. For example, I could not verify whether
*Foeniculum*<http://www.itis.usda.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=all&search_value=Foeniculum&search_kingdom=every&search_span=exactly_for&categories=All&source=html&search_credRating=All>nectar
is scented by using the filter paper-SPME approach. However, Patt
et al. (1999)<http://www.esajournals.org/esaonline/?request=get-document&issn=0012-9658&volume=085&issue=06&page=1486#i0012-9658-085-06-1486-patt1>demonstrated
that eulophid parasitoid wasps learn to find and feed from
artificial flowers more effectively when they include honey water or *
Foeniculum*<http://www.itis.usda.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=all&search_value=Foeniculum&search_kingdom=every&search_span=exactly_for&categories=All&source=html&search_credRating=All>nectar
than when sugar solutions are used, providing behavioral data
suggestive of nectar scent in this system".
-- 
Sincerely,
Ruth Rosin ("Prickly pear")

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