A RE-EVALUATION OF HONEY BEE DANCE COMMUNICATION.

Bees which have been successful in foraging at a given source can rely upon landmarks in repeatedly orienting to that source. They can also rely either upon monitoring or upon their ability to respond to odor stimuli provided by successful foragers simple discrimination conditioning to be recruited to that same source once it yields anew. A population of bees experienced at visiting a specific source can exploit this source with almost equal efficiency whether it yields continuously or sporadically. One might also deduce that a colonys food surplus accumulates by virtue of the efficient foraging behavior of experienced bees. The results of the experiments on recruitment of bees inexperienced at visiting a specific food site indicate that such recruited bees can utilize the odor of food and of other bees as they search after having been alerted by the dance maneuver of hivemates. In addition, they can search for any location odors which may cling to the body of regular foragers and the location of which they could have learned on earlier orientation or foraging flights as they conduct this search.