Tom Barrett wrote:

> If a rat learns to work its way through a
>maze do we not put that down to intelligence?. Why then can we not ascribe
>intelligence to the bee?

FWIW, I think that "intelligence" is a much more complicated matter than
"learning".  But bees can successfully learn to navigate mazes, and the rate
at which they learn to navigate them is only six times longer than the rate
at which rats learn the same maze (with honey rather than cheese as the
reward most likely :).  This is a rather remarkable feat for an animal with
a brain that only has one million neurons.  The rat's brain is over a
thousand times heavier.

As to Allen's comments on "cultural" storage of information:  I have read of
only a few instances where this has been actually documented by behavioural
studies.  I think almost all of them were in primates, although I believe
that there may have been one example of a bird doing this.

Although when it comes to the abilities of bees it seems prudent to keep an
open mind, it also seems a stretch to suggest cultural transmission of
information from ONE HIVE to ANOTHER HIVE.  And that is what would be
necessary for southern bees to learn from northern bees.

I get hundreds of queens from subtropical Australia and New Zealand, and
they seem to do not too bad here in Canada.  I know I have better
overwintering with my own queens after several winters of selecting for
"survivors", but not by a huge margin.  Mind you, we haven't had a really
severe winter for awhile now.

Regards, Stan   47 North in PEI