EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -Honeybees communicate the distance and location of resource patches by bee dances, but this spatial information has rarely been used to study their foraging ecology.

Detailed explanation-2: -Indeed many social bees, wasps and ants (hymenoptera) possess means of communication about distant food sources. The most celebrated case of such social transfer of information is the waggle dance of honeybees (Apis mellifera).

Detailed explanation-3: -Honeybees have evolved an extraordinary form of communication known as the “waggle” dance. It is highly symbolic, separated as it is in both time and space from the activity it grew out of (discovering a nectar source) and the activity it will spur on (getting other bees to go to that nectar source).

Detailed explanation-4: -He found two types of dance. The round dance (Figure 7.23A) causes bees to look for food a short distance (up to about 50 m) from the hive. The waggle dance (see Figure 7.23B and C) tells bees the direction and distance to fly to find more distant food sources.

Detailed explanation-5: -He recognized how this unique form of communication allowed bees to share information on the location of food sources with nest-mates. Von Frisch described the dance as “the most astounding example of non-primate communication that we know” (Von Frisch, 1967).