> There may be limited amounts of what we consider light inside a beehive

In this discussion it seems the role of infrared to provide some sort of 'vision' inside a dark hive has been overlooked once again in favour of more obvious and anthropomorphic senses.

Subtle differences in heat retention, absorption and radiation of various items inside a dark hive and the ability of bees and other insects to sense this part of the spectrum in detail (or not) deserves more thought IMO.  Has it ever been studied?

Granted, taste, smell and feel are important, but even relatively insentient critters like humans can tell if they are standing near something that radiates heat or absorbs it and seeing as bees regulate their brood nest temperatures so closely without the aid of instruments,  it seems reasonable to think they have sensitivity to small and subtle differences.  With humans, this sense is stronger in the dark when the distraction of vision is removed from the mix. 

In this same general theme, I recall some thread about bees heating individual cells sometime back on this list.

What we call colour of a surface is actually an indicator of the reflectivity or absorption of specific light wavelengths and a space that looks  pitch dark to us may be well illuminated when viewed by devices or critters that can 'see' or sense directionally in the infrared part of the spectrum.   

Where there is temperature, there is infrared and where there are temperature differences, there is detail.  Our ability to sense infrared detail is very poorly defined but can we assume that of other very different organisms?

The question of 'colour' inside a dark hive has been in my mind ever since the early days of Pierco foundation when a California beekeeper remarked that the bees prefer black plastic foundation and, to my surprise I found that seemed to be true.   Others came to agree.   Moreover, a preference for darker plastic generally seemed to be the case with Cobana sections and Ross Rounds made all their plastic a deep chocolate colour.  

Granted darker plastic looks better to us when stained with propolis and wax, but we continue to think that the bees agree for their own reasons.  Beekeepers also like dark foundation because eggs can be easier to spot against the contrasting tone but I doubt that explains the widespread belief that colour itself is part of the preference of bees for darker comb for some purposes.

AFAIK this is just one of those things old beekeepers 'know' and has not been put to a controlled experiment.  Maybe it has?

I wonder where Dr. B is these days.  Infrared was an area of interest for him.  I wonder if he investigated this aspect.

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