Virgin queen orientation flight from apidea

[gavin]

Are you sure? Something happens between experience and reaction. At some level the bee 'realises' that fanning the 'come home' scent is a good idea, and it goes off to do it.

What about the bee that had a bad experience at a feeding site, returns home, sees a waggle dance promoting the dangerous site, and then 'decides' to stop the waggle dance?

There is the dorso-ventral abdominal vibration signal. The right response is to 'say' OK, fine, I accept the signal by straightening out and holding the wings stiff down the back. In a video in the communications talk in the local association area you can see a bee looking irritated and doing a spot of self-grooming. Another bee comes up to it and does the dorso-ventral abdominal vibration thingie. The receiving bee was 'thinking' about asking for grooming as you can see it do not the right response but an inappropriate one, where it 'submits' to grooming by spreading its wings out and curling down the adbomen tip. And the bee doing the dorso-ventral shaking realises the bee didn't understand and does it again.

[EmsE]

They cannot be 'thinking'
I suppose the question is what is controlling the behaviour.

why not 'thinking'?

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[Jon]

I suppose I just have difficulty with the concept of an insect capable of thinking.
Surely pretty much all the insect behaviours are controlled by a combination of heritable traits, external stimuli such as heat and cold, and pheromone.
I would concede that a Labrador can 'think' if the outcome is a food reward, but even in that case how much of it is a mixture of operant and classical conditioning.

[EmsE]

I think every animal and insect is per programmed to some extent- some more than others but they must have the ability to think to survive / evolve.

In Gavins post in the LA section there's a video of a bee misiterprating the dance of another bee which can only be done (I think) if there is the element of thinking involved?

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[Mellifera Crofter]

It sounds as though the bees were applauding the queen as she leaves. I'm not sure that I could spot her returning.

[Jon]

She lands in the middle of the entrance porch about 1:38 and walks from left to right into the entrance at the right.
She is in the air in front of the apidea a couple of times before that but very out of focus.

[Jon]

Here's another one at lunchtime today.
There were several outside the apideas having a sniff around.

[gavin]

Again the worker 'encouraging' her to go was holding its wings at 45 degrees. Just another aspect of bee communication that we can decipher for ourselves (as long as Jon or someone records it and makes it available for repeated viewing).