Denmark contributor Lars Hansen's Question #3 (18 January): Speaking of natural conditions: Could it be, that the area where some have experimented favoured a conclusion that odor is less important? And did the areas where others have experimented favor the opposite conclusion? As a European, I'm not familiar with American geography in detail, but I guess that a plains area and a small valley would emphasize different aspects? ********** To alter the thrust of his question slightly, control against odor artifacts in these types of experiments is more difficult to accomplish in some areas than in others. For instance, in most of the eastern United States and in central Europe (correct me if I am wrong on that), summer storms pass through with some degree of frequency. Winds tend to be in one direction during an approaching storm and in a quite different direction during a clearing condition. Bees from a colony in those areas can thus collectively forage rather well in more than one direction. Foragers learn landmarks and can remain faithful to a good food source for days or weeks on end. As winds shift, other foragers can forage in other directions simultaneously. Consider the results of an 8-day study conducted by Visscher and Seeley, published in 1982 (partly summarized in Fig 7.3 of Seeley's 1985 HONEYBEE ECOLOGY book). They observed dance maneuvers in an observation hive and noticed that foraging occurred primarily in one direction (SSW). A rainstorm moved in, at which time bees foraged close to the hive (as written about by Virgil). After the storm passed, however, most foraging that they tallied occurred in a NE direction. Visscher and Seeley did not publish information on wind direction, but their results can mesh with an odor-search hypothesis; foraging occurs primarily in one direction from the hive. Rain would wash nectar out of some types of flowers --- the foragers to that source would have to wait until those blossoms again yielded. The APPARENT switch to another direction in their study could be because other foragers visit another type of flower that still had nectar and would still provide dance maneuvers for those localities in the hive. The Visscher and Seeley interpretation: Some foragers had found a "better" source, and their dances had converted the foraging population to the new direction. I know, though, that foragers remain faithful to given sources for days or weeks. ********* In the Santa Barbara area we have a distinct advantage while conducting these types of experiments. Weather fronts move far to the north of us during the summer, and we normally have no rain between early April and November. Each day during the summer usually begins with light fog that dissipates by midday. The slight breeze from the SE in the morning gradually switches to a stronger breeze from the SW in the afternoon each day. The above set of circumstances enabled us to conduct our [1969] "crucial" experiment for a 24-day period, with nearly identical weather conditions for 3 hours each morning. The crucial experiment design we employed has two competing hypotheses (odor-search and language) pitted against one another. That is, a set of results will support one hypothesis and negate the other, or vice versa --- ambiguity cannot exist. The results were published as follows (also summarized in Chapter 10 of our book, ANATOMY OF A CONTROVERSY): 1969 Wenner, A.M., P.H. Wells and D.L. Johnson. Honey bee recruitment to food sources: Olfaction or language? SCIENCE. 164:84-86. A summary of some results of that study follows: 1) We collected a total of more than 2000 recruited bees during the experiment. 2) At stations where odor was present and routinely visited by a total of 20 different foragers, we got about 26 new recruits per hour. 3) At those same stations, under the same conditions but without odor, we obtained only 2 recruits per hour. (It is difficult to get rid of all traces of odor.) 4) During the same period (as in 3), as regular foragers visited feeding stations without odor, we had a third station with a feeder and the ODOR OF THE DAY BEFORE. That station had 19 arrivals per hour, with NO forager visitation and NO DANCES for that site in the hive. (Note the contrast: 19 per hour to odor but only 2 per hour where dances in the hive had presumably directed them.) I will gladly mail a copy of that article to anyone who wishes (furnish a mailing address, please). An academic question: "Will you find the results of this experiment mentioned in writings by language advocates?" ********* In reply to Lars Hansen's questions, then, I don't believe that researchers in the eastern U.S. or in Europe can satisfactorily conduct such an experiment, due to rather frequent changes in the weather and due to the fact that locality odors (distinctive smells in different places) become a much greater problem where one has rain. Adrian Adrian M. Wenner (805) 963-8508 (home phone) 967 Garcia Road (805) 893-8062 (UCSB FAX) Santa Barbara, CA 93106 ******************************************************************** * * "When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, * we must accept that fact and abandon the theory, even when * the theory is supported by great names and generally * accepted." * * Claude Bernard --- 1865 ********************************************************************