At EAS we had a chance to watch an actual (artificial) swarm up close and personal with Tom Seeley as the bees decided where to move from their clustering place. We also heard several talks on how bees make group decisions. I have some pictures at http://www.honeybeeworld.com/diary/articles/thursday_august_6th.htm I think the process applies to beekeepers, too. Some dance more boldly and more often, others dance less and less. When a critical number of recruits are convinced, the whole group moves. BEE-L, and other such list and forums are like the comb where the dancing takes place. http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/April06/swarm.quorum.ssl.html Also, see http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0707/feature5/text2.html (about halfway down the page) and http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/211/23/i *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html