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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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From:
Peter Loring Borst <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 9 Jun 2016 20:21:25 -0400
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> There has been a change in opinion in recent years about whether bees hear.  I tend to agree with Charles - part of this may be how hearing is defined.

Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines hear as: "To perceive, or have the sensation of, sound; to possess or exercise the faculty of audition, of which the specific organ is the ear."

If you are picking up sounds with some other organ than the ear, it isn't hearing, it's feeling. You need an ear to hear, like you need an eye to see. 
 
> We do know that bees produce different sounds when stressed by different stressors - that could be simple a physiological response, something like a human knee jerk.  

The fact that bees produce "sounds" does not also mean they can hear them. Plants produce sounds, like the creaking eucalyptus, etc. As I said, honey bees feel vibrations, but through solid media, not air. 

In order to show that bees hear, you would have to have 1) an organ of perception; 2) a neurological signal; 3) a response. In the case of the senses of feeling, smell, taste, etc. we have all these. But hearing? 

PLB

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