At 12:00 AM 2/16/00 -0500, Adrian Wenner wrote:
>We in science call upon a law called "Occam's Razor" in such a case; use
>the simplest explanation that can accommodate the evidence.  Odor is by
>far more simple than a human-type language.


1. Between these two explanations, which is more simple?:
         a) Bees encode spatial information into distinct dance-like
movements in order to convey this information to others.
         b) Many different species of bees have evolved a highly efficient
symbolic representation of spatial relationships for *no purpose whatever.*


2. No one ever suggested that the bee dance was a "human-type language."
There is no resemblance whatever. All that has been suggested is that the
bees communicate information they have to other bees that need it. That
many bees ignore this information indicates that many *don't need it* since
they are either not nectar foragers, already have enough information to
find forage, or are seeking other sources.

What is being left out of all these discussions is the decision making
process that goes on in the hive, which is the subject of thousands of
hours of work by Seeley, Camazine, Calderone, and others. The dancing can
be compared to advertising. These bees return with information about nectar
sources or nest sites and "advertise" on the dance floor. By processes not
yet understood, other bees are influenced to forage or relocate the swarm.

As Seeley points out, it would be ineffective if one bee could persuade all
bees to go to its chosen source, because the hive needs to distribute its
labor over a variety of sources and tasks. Further, if many scouts provide
information about many sources, or nest sites, some of this information
must be routinely ignored, since there is a limited work force and in the
case of the swarm, only one site will be occupied.




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Peter Borst
Apiary Technician
Dyce Honeybee Lab
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY  14853
[log in to unmask]
607 275 0266
http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/plb6/
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