> Riley et al., however, very deliberately > EXCLUDED THE USE OF ANY SCENTED FOOD. > HAD THEY USED SCENTED FOOD THEIR PRESUMABLY > DISCOVERED DL WOULD QUICKLY DISAPPEAR INTO THIN AIR. > ...Under such conditions the mowed grass might not have > dried enough to lose all odor-traces for honeybees... So, let's get this straight: Whenever someone sets up a foraging test using scented feed, Ruth will criticize the test as being nothing but a demonstration of "odor" as the actual mechanism used by the bees get to the feeder. On the other hand, when care is taken to avoid scents, Ruth claims that if scents would have been used, the dancing would somehow be irrelevant, due to the presence of odors. Even when the wind direction is such that the bees are flying "downwind" to the feeder, this is not sufficient for Ruth. On yet another hand (we are running out of hands here) Ruth insists that the odor of grass might somehow be sufficient alone to provide bees with an odor to "home in" upon (but not always find) an unscented feeder, even though the same odor would be present over a very large area, at least as large as, perhaps larger than the entire area of the bee flight range being tracked. (If this were true, bees would not be flying directly to the general area of the feeder, with some fraction of the total bees unable to find the feeder itself.) To summarize, Ruth's stated views appear to be that if scents are overtly used, odor is the mechanism used, not dance. If no scents are overtly used, then the data is somehow invalid due to the lack of odor, except that she also wishes to simultaneously claim that odors of things like grass are actually being used to ALMOST locate a unique unscented feeder in a unique location within a large area permeated by this consistent odor, even when the feeder is downwind of the hive. To summarize the summary, there appears to be no possible test that will satisfy Ruth, as her criticisms are appear to be contradictory, mutually exclusive, and do not explain the actual flight paths of the bees tracked. Even a test where the bees are apparently "fooled" by being released away from the hive into flying downwind to a location where there is no feeder is apparently insufficient in Ruth's view. James Kilty pointed out that the link I provided to the full text and diagrams of the study currently being critiqued by Ruth was mangled by the listserv. He provided this shorter link that should survive the attack of the line-wrap monster. http://www.honeybee.neurobiologie.fu-berlin.de/column/publications.html (The specific paper is number "21", at the top of the web page.) -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l for rules, FAQ and other info ---