Well, its been a long time since any of my posts generated any 
discussion.  Fun to see some give and take.  Jim put in some serious 
time.  Too bad we couldn't argue this over a couple of beers.

I stand by my last statement.  You can read anything else you might like, 
into the discussion.  I tried to say what we know from testing, what I 
'think', which is opinion.  Bees Don't NEED the DANCE to be successful at 
foraging.

Note, I did not take a stand on the dance.

As to interference in bee behavior, caused by grabbing bees and attaching 
tags, that's my conclusion after lots of testing.  Its opinion, but its 
also the reason we stopped pursuing tags, turned to lasers.

Now, as to why Joe's bees found their targets.  Since the bees can find the 
odor without ANY dance information, they will get to a scented target 
regardless of whether they do or do not get any usable information from the 
dance and whether anyone grabbed them.

Also, Joe didn't paint his bees, but the GLUE is very volatile.  In fact, 
I'm surprised it doesn't throw them off.

Do all of the bees go to our landmines, absolutely not.  Do the majority of 
them search for the non-reward bearing targets -- it appears so, but our 
new lasers will finally answer that question.

Is our situation highly artificial - absolutely.  But note, we're the only 
one who ever uncoupled the dance from the odor (as far as getting bees to a 
non-reward bearing target that doesn't look like a flower or feeder -- its 
just a patch of dirt).  Now, this is MY opinion, and Jim and Bill aren't 
likely to agree.  But, we've been reasonably successful at following our 
opinions, so I'll continue along this path until our data proves me wrong.

Jim says the dance will send foragers to other FOOD sources.  Maybe.  Do 
some bees fly and bring home water, pollen, nectar -- while others go to 
landmines -- certainly.

But, if you are a forager conditioned to landmines, YOUR floral constancy 
should be to a tray with oodles of syrup, that smells like a nitrogen 
compound.  Since that tray is by the hive, economy of effort would imply 
that any foragers from THAT SOURCE should be dancing to direct their 
sisters to THAT source.  In fact, we have to control access to the tray -- 
otherwise no bee goes anywhere other than to the tray.

Now, at least two of the major U.S. proponents (scientists who have 
published in Nature about the dance) have confessed that:

1) The dance doesn't appear to have a role in how we get bees to non-reward 
bearing targets, and
2) Of these, one of the key players is as interested in our laser as we are 
-- although he strongly believes in and has published extensively on the dance,
the scientist in him knows that we really don't know how bees discover and 
explore new areas -- if we can image that, picking out the bees from the 
moment they walk out the door, and can monitor all 360 degrees, with full 
sampling of wind directions, etc. -- we're going to have a chance to really 
examine central foraging.

Not necessarily what the books say, but what the bees do.

Jerry

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