Beemaster Geo  opined:
>Unlike you and I, bees can't plan ahead; so they won't build comb in March in
>anticipation of a spring nectar flow.

        As he is a v experienced scientist, he would not misunderstand if I
proceded straight to the scientific issue; but non-scientists unused to the
simple directness of our subculture seem to think it's rude, so let me
begin by saying I am v reluctant to query anything by our senior man who
certainly knows vastly more than I do about bees and has contributed more
than anyone to this list.
        Who has not noticed a hive preparing for a good, or a bad, season?
Don't they plan, on various time-scales?  It may well be that there's no
evidence on the time-scale which Geo specifies  -  I'm not contradicting
him;  but what about a month or two?
        Our lack of knowledge about *how* they plan is not the point.  Let
us not repeat the fallacy whereby lack of any known organ of hearing in the
bee led to many decades of irrational denial that the bee has a sense of
hearing.  We know little or nothing about how bees plan; but, in the spirit
of science, I wish to open discussion on the facts, rather than what the
mechanism might be (fascinating tho' that speculation may be).

        Who thinks that bees plan?

R