Student Theses and Dissertations
Date of Award
1975
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Thesis Advisor
Donald Griffin
Keywords
honey bee communication, dance language, symbolic communication, forager misdirection, odor cues, honey bees
Abstract
In recent years, the evidence suggesting that honey bees communicate with a "dance language" has been strongly attacked on both theoretical and experimental grounds. The controversy is reviewed and the main issues are isolated and discussed. The fundamental obstacle to the resolution of this important dispute has been that dancing bees advertise a food location with specific odor information as well as with symbolic distance and direction coordinates. Since recruited bees seem able to find food on the basis of site-specific locale odors alone, a conclusive test would be one in which the dancer gave symbolic directions to a location to which it had never been. If recruits do not use the language, they would show no preference for the station indicated by the dance. In theory there are at least three ways to perform an unambiguous experiment. One way is to use a dummy bee whose dance parameters are directly controlled by the experimenter. Progress along this line is described. A second way would be to cause the foragers to "lie" about distance. The theoretical and practical difficulties associated with this approach are discussed. Finally, foragers could be caused to lie about direction. A practical technique to accomplish this misdirection of dance information is described. The ocelli of forager bees are covered with paint, making the bees six times less sensitive to light. In the hive, an artificial sun is used to reorient bees. Since the ocelli-painted foragers do not respond to the light, they orient their dances with respect to gravity, while untreated bees interpret the dances with respect to light. Hence, if recruits use the abstract distance and direction information in the dance, they would be expected to fly to a specific but incorrect location in the field. In fact, recruits do precisely that, proving unambiguously that the symbolic dance communication is a real phenomenon. Since the misdirection technique removes the many odor problems associated with previous work, more precise measurements of distance and direction accuracy are possible. Recruit accuracy was measured, and theoretical problems inherent in the interpretation of such results are discussed. The notion that bees must integrate separate dances was tested and found unlikely. The effects of the techniques of von Frisch and Wenner were also examined. Von Frisch's methods increase the observed accuracy moderately, while Wenner's decrease it dramatically. A technique for automatically capturing and counting recruits is also described. The questions of in what sense honey bees may be said to possess a language or to be "rational" are also considered. A reformulation of the dance-language hypothesis is presented.
License and Reuse Information
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Gould, James Leroy, "Honey Bee Communication: The Dance-Language Controversy" (1975). Student Theses and Dissertations. 583.
https://digitalcommons.rockefeller.edu/student_theses_and_dissertations/583
Comments
A thesis presented to the faculty of The Rockefeller University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy