> I wonder what the difference is in the above quote from Etienne.  Surely individual bees or even colonys don't have the ability to learn on their own how to prepare and cope with winter.

You nailed it. I have long wanted to write about what honey bees can and cannot learn. As you say, most of their behavior is instinctive, therefore genetically inherited and not learned. But, when a given colony is alive, they may have acquired certain information which they can retain as long as they can remember it. But that information cannot be passed on to their offspring. 

The problem with the use of terms like adaptation, is that my bees did not "adapt" to climate change. Bees that didn't survive fell out of the gene pool, leaving the bees we have with certain heritable traits. One of these is the ability to hunker down for many months, if properly provisioned and protected. Tropical bees have the ability to migrate to better conditions, if needed.

Finally, there are limits -- even for evolution. One evolved trait may render another impossible. Hence, no flying snakes. 

PLB

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