> The 'punchline' was that it took the colonies 3 to 5 generations
> before the 'smarts' were instilled in their genes to allow them an
> appropriate broodrearing strategy for the local conditions.

Well, I know I'll get some looks for this, but I'm used to it, and here goes:

We humans have something called culture that is passed on from generation to
generation and has a huge effect on behaviour, yet we do not attribute this --
or anything like it -- to the multiplicity of other beings with which we share a
common origin.  Sometimes we will not even grant recognition of culture to some
of  our fellow humans.  I have never been able to figure out why not.  The
evidence is not at all occult.

I've watched cats teach one another things that might be considered to be passed
down from one generation to another, dogs too.  We know migratory animals and
birds teach one another age old patterns. Experience in humans is related from
generation to generation by many diverse means.

>From earliest human times stories, songs, dances, collections of symbols, and
elaborate structures have been built to explain and demonstrate when seasonal
events could be expected to occur.  The understanding of any of these clues and
prompts is not simple and must be learned.  Granted, much knowledge of a general
sort is encoded into our genes, but much essential information that is less long
term is handled in more volatile and mutable forms of storage, not hardwired
into our form.

Allen Latham postulated the existence of 'control bees' in a hive, bees which
somehow acted as the guardians of the accumulated knowledge of that hive.  I am
not aware of how he felt the knowledge was stored -- or promulgated.  AFAIK, no
one has ever been able to prove or discredit his beliefs, so I think we are free
to use them if we wish, and anyone pooh-poohing the ideas has the burden of
proof.

This is indeed a marvellous world in which we live, and new miracles are
revealed daily.  We have no way to know what *may* be encoded into hive
structures or even -- in novel forms -- into the body structures of bees
themselves, even outside of genetic inheritance.  An amazing amount of
information can be encoded into physical or electrical arrangements of even a
small number of particles.

Consider this: if you were to have handed an intelligent and educated human a
simple device like a 8086 processor, or even a simple transistor, 200 years ago,
would he -- using all the knowledge and facilities available at the time -- have
been able to puzzle out its meaning, purpose or significance?  I doubt it.  Why,
then, do we think we can discount a possible innate bee 'technology' or culture
with the almost negligible bit of effort we have put to the task?

What, gives us reason to believe that we have the faintest idea about how the
society of bees *really* functions or how they store information and understand?
Sure, we have a grasp of the grossest features and mass phenomena of their
society and can manipulate them a bit (rather poorly from what I read on these
lists), but we have not the slightest idea of passes for thought or experience
for a bee -- or even if such analogies are apt.

Wise and observant old practical beekeepers -- as long as I have listened to
them -- have ascribed an acclimatisation ability to honey bee populations that
is far too swift to be explained by genetic selection.

Why not simply explain it as learning?

allen  (Thinking about a razor).