Honey Bee Dance

This dancing language is most fascinating shown particularly by worker honey bees. There are several different types of dances within a colonies life. Nobel laureate Karl von Frisch was one of the first ethologists to investigate both the waggle dance and round dance through his studies in 1920’s. To indicate food source, its location and quantity dance is performed by foragers bees. Honey bees perform dances inside the hive on the surface of the comb.

Dances associated with food

Depends on the distance of food from the hive, dance is of two types:

• Round Dance:
  The round dance indicates that there is flora within near 50 m to the hive, the bees recruited are left to discover the direction of the forage. To assist in the “discovery” of the forage the dancer will exchange nectar with awaiting workers before and after the dance so that they can employ the odour of the forage to orientate.
• Wagtail or Waggle dance:
  Runs straight ahead for a short distance on the vertical comb surface and turns round. Waggles her abdomen and repeats the dancing and runs another semi-circle to complete the circle in the opposite direction. This is a roughly circular dance consisting of two halves – “the figure eight”. The straight run is emphasized by vigorous shaking of the abdomen from side to side and usually by a buzzing sound made by the flight muscle and skeleton but without noticeable wing beating.

Written By:
Dr. Meenakshi Devi
Assistant Professor, FASC
SGT UNIVERSITY