On Nov 9, 2005, at 5:06 PM, Joe Waggle wrote (in small part):
> Hello All,
>
> I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas on what could be
> added to my honeybee presentations to help make them
> more interesting and unique.
>
> I'm thinking about incorporating an interactive short
> course on the 'Waggle Dance' into my presentations for
> the kids. Possibly making a simple display with the
> 'sun' and 'hive'. Then doing a waggle dance with a
> toy bee. The kids then could use a simple chart to
> figure on a map the forage location the bee is
> dancing.
Tim Vaughan then suggested:
"You should read Adrian's book Anatomy of a Controversy: The Question
of a
"Language" Among Bees. Adrian M. Wenner and Patrick H. Wells. Columbia
Univ.
Press (1990). ISBN 0-231-06552-3."
and: "There will probably be one in a library near you. You could very
well be
teaching false information to the kids. If you need a book for your
personal
library, contact Adrian first since he may still have some that he can
sell
less expensively than what you can get on line."
********
Joe was correct. By watching the waggle dance, one can gain a vague
notion of the food source location visited by the dancing bee. The
real problem is that attendant bees apparently cannot use that
information but instead rely on odor present on the body of the dancing
bee (as von Frisch insisted upon back in the 1930s). One can go to my
latest publication about that matter at:
http://www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/jib2002.htm (thanks to Barry
Birkey)
Just under a year ago Prof. Kipyatkov of St. Petersburg University
in Russia invited me to give a plenary lecture on the role of odors in
honey bee recruitment to food sources and to participate in a symposium
on varroa mites at the Third European Congress on Social Insects (22-27
August 2005). That invitation surprised me, but I was even more
surprised to find myself keynote speaker at the Congress. I was also
made first speaker in the varroa mite symposium.
A woman from Ukraine later told me that I was a "very famous person"
in Russia, that our papers had all been translated into Russian, and
that our experiments have been used in classes to illustrate effective
experimental design. Quite frankly, I was floored (but pleased)!
Malcolm Sanford attended the Congress and wrote a full account of
the proceedings. Part 1 just appeared in the November issue of the
American Bee Journal (pp. 913-915). Parts 2 and 3 will appear in later
editions. Eric Mussen also included a summary of the presentations in
the Sept/Oct. issue of the U.C. Apiaries Newsletter of the University
of California, available at:
entomology.ucdavis.edu/faculty/mussen.cfm
You can find the abstract of my odor and bee recruitment lecture at:
http://www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/odorabstract.htm
Late next July I will be giving an adaptation of that keynote lecture
at the 2006 Western Apicultural Society Conference, to be held in
Buellton, California. Details will be available later.
My supply of our 1990 book (Anatomy of a Controversy) is dwindling,
but I can still sell a few copies to those sincerely interested in the
topic (though I would surely not appreciate someone buying a copy and
then making a profit on Amazon.com or e-bay).
Alternatively, one can go to BeeSource.com and find almost all of
our publications:
http://www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/index.htm
Adrian
Adrian M. Wenner (805) 963-8508 (home office phone)
967 Garcia Road [log in to unmask]
Santa Barbara, CA 93103 www.beesource.com/pov/wenner/index.htm
*******************************************************************
* Everything has been said [and/or done] before, but since nobody
* listens, we have to keep going back and begin all over again.
*
* André Gide —— Nobel Laureate in Literature, 1947
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