Dear BEE-L subscribers:
On March 4th, Aaron Morris wrote: “I'd rather spend my time reading
about something that will impact my beekeeping.”
Dick Allen responded: “Interesting. In my life as a commercial
beekeeper, the theories of how bees find and communicate their food
sources have always been in the back of my mind when working bees.”
For decades now I have attempted to point out the importance of odor
during recruitment of bees to food sources, findings that can really
impact beekeeping and should interest people like Aaron. For instance,
does one really have to distribute colonies throughout an orchard for
effective pollination? Or can hives be placed upwind or downwind (or
both) from an orchard to achieve the same result? An expanded
resolution of that question could mean a great deal of difference in
expenses to those who rent colonies out for pollination.
Whereas some language advocates in this country, in Britain, and in
Germany still resolutely refuse to consider seriously the value of von
Frisch’s 1930s odor-search hypothesis (see:
beesource.com/pov/wenner/bw1993.htm), others are not so constrained. I
don’t think it an accident that I was Keynote Speaker at an
international meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2005 and Plenary
Speaker during opening ceremonies in Kusadasi, Turkey last fall. My
talks were very well received (except for a strong objection from a
German who had been involved in the radar tracking experiments). I
gave much the same address as president at the WAS meetings here this
past summer and encountered no objections.
See: beesource.com/pov/wenner/odorabstract.htm for the content of
those talks. I think one can see much potential practical application
for beekeepers.
My co-workers and I spent more than a decade documenting the role
of odor during recruitment and search behavior of recruited bees. We
followed the rules that I posted in my part 2 of this series and did
not attempt to prove a hypothesis true. We instead sought to learn how
undisturbed bees behaved in the field. We gathered data as thousands
of those bees searched and published our extensive results in refereed
scientific journals.
Unfortunately, “giants” in bee research were disturbed by the
implications of our research; that is, the dance language hypothesis
was not necessary to explain our results. We have now seen more than
three decades of futile attempts by believers to “prove” that
hypothesis true, with results obtained from the performance of only a
few dozen bees in most cases. In all cases I know of, “they tried to
fit facts to the hypothesis.” By contrast, we had discovered how well
the von Frisch odor-search hypothesis facts we had obtained.
Language advocates have embraced the results of such rather trivial
“success” experiments, even though beekeepers still reap no benefit
from such research. More peculiar, they welcomed publication of a
review by sociologist Eileen Crist, who did her best to accumulate
positive evidence in favor of the hypothesis (and interviewed only
language supporters, while ignoring our substantial evidence about the
role of odor). Curiously, advocates also welcomed the Emily Smith and
Gard Otis “resolution” articles (which relied heavily on the Crist
article and also ignored all of the evidence we had published on the
search behavior of thousands of “unmolested” bees).
Such behavior constitutes a great disservice to beekeepers.
The same holds true of various bee books published these past three
decades. Beekeepers will find little or no mention about the results
we obtained from the behavior of thousands of searching bees. I
consider it highly unprofessional for researchers to omit results that
might help beekeepers understand their craft. Ignoring or dismissing
hard evidence does not make it disappear.
Now, thanks to Barry Birkey, most of our extensive experimental
results are readily available to beekeepers at beesource.com/pov. One
example, beesource.com/pov/wenner/sci1969.htm, shows a tally of more
than 2,000 recruit arrivals in a blind, “crucial experiment” design.
We also provided every bit of the data we gathered during a 17-day
sequence of experiments (no “cherry picking” of data there!). I am
certain that bright readers on this list who studied those results and
design could well see that the conclusions derived follow from the
results — should they choose to spend the time studying that
publication.
Any bee researcher or beekeeper, with the help of some student
volunteers, could easily repeat that experiment in a few weeks during a
slack time of nectar in summer. (I don’t expect that to happen.)
Those who would like a more general summary of the implications of
our research can access: beesource.com/pov/wenner/az1991.htm (an
invited review paper). In there I show how results obtained by
language advocates can fit nicely into the von Frisch odor-search
hypothesis.
For how swarm movement fits into the odor-search hypothesis, one can
read: beesource.com/pov/wenner/abjjan1992.htm
Others have attributed to me such notions as “bees conduct a random
search” and “odor can explain everything.” Not true — beekeeper Don
Cole’s comment on this list rings more true: “The challenges to the DL
hypothesis, such as the odor search hypothesis, constitute a ''case
open'' position. I find the subject endlessly fascinating.” My attitude
is that we actually know almost nothing about the strange world of bees
and should distrust anyone who comes up with “irrefutable” answers. On
that point see: beesource.com/pov/wenner/jib2002.htm
The honey bee genome analysis yielded 170 odor receptor sites (but
none for bee use of other dance maneuver information).
Let us now exploit that great lead !
Adrian M. Wenner (805) 963-8508 (home office phone)
967 Garcia Road [log in to unmask]
Santa Barbara, CA 93103 www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/index.htm
"No one can walk backward into the future." (Chinese fortune cookie)
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