Hello All,
I think now might be the time to speak directly to the research and the 1950
Van Frisch publication "Bees"
.
119 pages of large print book. One of the smallest books ever published on
bees. The book is based on three lectures by Von Frisch

The first "The Color Sense of Bees" has stood the test of time.

The second "The chemical senses of Bees" is very primitive and outdated.
Many of today's researchers have always objected to Von Frisch never using
the word hypothesis and presenting many of his hypothesis as simply fact.

On page 38 Von Frisch ( in my opinion) displays the opinion he is not sure
about bee chemical sense and using a comparison between a human & insect
sense of smell. A comparison between say a bee and a butterfly would have
been appropriate but not (in my opinion) between a human & insect.

Von Frisch quote:
" The sense organs on the antennae can detect ,as far as we know,about as
many different qualities of odor as the human nose"

"as far as we know" is about as far as Von Frisch goes in casting doubt on
his conclusions. However Von Frisch gives exact data on his experiments.
Presenting data is one thing but conclusions about what the data means is a
horse of a different color.

The third chapter ( lecture) " The Language of Bees" presents the
experiments and data. I believe the experiments included in pages 53 -109
have been the most done experiments on bees. They are easily done be even
the average beekeeper. However researchers like Tom Seeley " The Wisdom of
the Hive" have taken those old Von Frisch experiments to new levels as shown
in the Seeley book.

Seeley quotes Von Frisch through out the book but uses the word *hypothesis*
in the correct places. Seeley quotes Lindauer the most in his book.

Last year I had a chance to talk directly in person with Tom Seeley at a
joint meeting of Missouri & Kansas beekeepers.

Tom carefully dodged my questions (typical researcher) and used the word
hypothesis at times. Answers came quickly giving me the idea  he had already
been questioned on his Dance-Language controversy position many times. I
came away not exactly sure what his position was. I found his book
fascinating reading and got my copy signed.

Bob



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