COMMUNICATION IN BEES:Omitted though indispensable control cases in the standard fanwise experiment about the honey bee 'dance language'.

摘要

In the present paper four essential control cases for the standard dance language experiment were examined. A total number (N) of 5-567 arrivals of not experienced Apis mellifera macedonica worker bees either scouts (N =742) or recruits (N2=4.825) wasrecorded at the odorous sites of a fan wise arrangement. Unexceptionally their distribution on these sites was of the multinomial form exactly as is the case with the standard experiment. More specifically, in the two control cases with recruit bees theproportion of their arrivals at the central site of the fan to their total number was 32.7% (N '=758) when the feeding station was installed behind the fan, while respectively 24.2% (N2"=4.067) in front of it .On the other hand, the respective values concerning the two control cases with scout bees were for the nearer fan to the experimental colony 25.6% (N,1 = 367) and for the distant one 23.2% (N," = 375). Hie overall data of the four control cases examined here reveal that the orientation of the newcomer bees to the sites of the fan and their subsequent distribution form on them is not determined at all by the symbolic movements of the successful dancer foragers of a bee colony.