Dance Language
Lexikon
When a forager returns from a rewarding flight, she dances on the comb and thereby recruits more bees for the same source.
When a forager returns from a rewarding flight, she dances on the comb and thereby recruits more bees for the same source. What is communicated is not only finds of nectar and pollen but also water sources, resin sources, and, when swarming, the location of possible new nest sites. The dance thus serves recruitment: her nestmates are to find the spot more quickly.
Two basic forms are distinguished. The round dance indicates that the source is close to the hive; as a rule of thumb, the distance is below about 100 meters. For more distant destinations the waggle dance is performed, a figure of eight with a straight waggle run in the middle. The transition between the two forms is gradual. In the waggle dance the distance is contained in the duration of the waggle phase: the longer the waggling, the farther away the destination. The direction is indicated by the angle: if the bee runs the waggle run at a certain angle to the vertical on the comb, the destination lies at the same angle to the current position of the sun. In addition, there is the scent of the flowers that the dancer gives off.
It is often said that the dance indicates the location of the find very precisely. That is an overstatement. The foragers receive a rough estimate of direction and distance. The distance information is relatively precise only within about one kilometer of the hive; beyond that, the difference in waggle duration is barely perceptible. Moreover, bees do not pass on distances in meters but their own perception of the distance covered.
A common mistake concerns the year. Karl von Frisch discovered and described these dances as early as around 1923, but he received the Nobel Prize only in 1973, namely the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, together with Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen.