Bob,
    Peter can speak for himself but I am moved to point out that he never
said that bees don't leave the hive to die. He doesn't attribute that action
to "suicide' or some other altruistic motive. The data (sometimes) is that
they die away from the hive. If this were always true we would never find
dead bees in the hive or on the landing board.
     There are many ways in which we attribute human motivation to bees. For
instance, we don't know that bees store honey to "get through the winter."
We can only say that they store honey. After all, the bees doing the storing
have never seen a winter. They aren't mean-tempered when it rains; all the
foragers are home and free to attack. They don't fill up with honey because
they think a smoker is a forest fire. I strongly suspect they don't kick the
drones out in the fall to save stores. They will collect sawdust for pollen
and tar for propolis...how smart can they be? We can't even say they
"sacrifice" themselves when they sting. They've never done it before and
can't know it will be their last act. 

Dick Marron

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