Bees are renowned for their incredible teamwork within their colonies, working tirelessly to gather food. Their primary goal is to efficiently locate and collect the richest sources of pollen and nectar. When a bee discovers a particularly bountiful patch of flowers, it needs to communicate this valuable find to its fellow bees back at the hive. But how exactly do these tiny insects share such complex information about location?
Communication is Key: The Language of Bee Dances
Bees have developed a fascinating method of communication using special dances performed inside the hive. Imagine a bee returning to the hive after a successful foraging trip. To share the location of the flower patch, this bee will perform a dance, and other bees will attentively watch and learn. As the dancing bee moves, it carries the scent of the flowers it visited, and even offers a taste of the gathered nectar. These sensory clues – smell and taste – are crucial in helping the watching bees identify the correct flower type.
Bees primarily use two distinct types of dances to convey information about flower locations: the waggle dance and the round dance. Let’s delve deeper into each of these intricate communication methods.
The Waggle Dance: Mapping Distance and Direction
The waggle dance is a sophisticated form of bee communication that provides precise details about a flower patch’s location relative to the hive. This dance conveys two critical pieces of information: the distance to the flowers and the direction in which they can be found. Let’s break down how bees encode this information within the waggle dance.
Decoding Distance: The Waggle Run
As a bee performs the waggle dance, it moves forward in a straight line while rhythmically waggling its abdomen from side to side. This straight line movement is known as the waggle run. The duration of this waggle run is directly related to the distance of the flower patch. A longer waggle run indicates a flower patch that is farther away from the hive. Conversely, a shorter waggle run signifies a closer flower patch.
Which waggle dance, depicted below, indicates a flower patch that is further from the hive? If you identified the dance on the left, you’re correct! The extended waggle run clearly signals a greater distance.
Alt text: Waggle dance distance comparison, showing a longer waggle run indicating a farther flower patch on the left and a shorter run on the right for a closer patch.
Decoding Direction: Angle and the Sun
Bees have an innate sense of orientation within their hive, understanding the concepts of up and down. They use this vertical orientation to represent direction in their waggle dance. The angle of the waggle run relative to vertical within the hive corresponds to the direction of the flower patch relative to the sun outside the hive.
Imagine the vertical direction within the hive as representing the sun’s position. A waggle run danced directly upwards means “fly directly towards the sun.” A waggle run angled to the right of vertical indicates “fly at that same angle to the right of the sun.”
Consider the following illustrations. Even if the sun changes position throughout the day, the angle of the waggle run within the hive remains constant, ensuring that the direction to the flower patch is accurately communicated.
Alt text: Waggle dance direction example 1, illustrating how the angle of the waggle run relative to vertical in the hive corresponds to the flight angle relative to the sun.
Alt text: Waggle dance direction example 2, showing consistent waggle run angle in the hive even with a different sun position outside, maintaining correct directional information.
The Round Dance: Flowers Nearby
In contrast to the waggle dance, the round dance is a simpler form of communication. The round dance provides less detailed information, primarily indicating that a flower patch is located nearby the hive. This dance doesn’t include a waggle run and doesn’t convey specific directional information.
During a round dance, a bee moves in a circular pattern, reverses direction, and traces the same circle in the opposite direction. This sequence is repeated multiple times. Sometimes, a bee might incorporate a brief waggle as it turns around within the circle. It’s believed that the duration of this short waggle might communicate the quality or richness of the nearby flower patch.
Alt text: Bee performing a round dance, illustrating the circular movement pattern used to indicate nearby flower sources.
The Quest for the Best Flowers: Nectar and Pollen
Honey bee colonies are driven by the need to collect two essential resources from flowers: nectar and pollen. Nectar serves as the raw material for honey production, their energy source, while pollen is their protein source, crucial for brood rearing and bee development. Bees are constantly striving to find flowers that offer the most abundant supplies of these two resources.
To maximize their foraging efficiency, individual bees employ a couple of key strategies. Firstly, they often specialize in collecting either nectar or pollen on a given foraging trip. This specialization allows them to become more efficient at recognizing and harvesting the specific resource they are focused on.
Secondly, bees are remarkably adept at learning and remembering which flower species are currently providing the most rewarding resources. The most profitable flower species can change over time, depending on the season and floral availability. Bees continuously update their knowledge, adapting to the ever-changing floral landscape.
Once a bee locates a particularly rewarding flower source, it diligently collects nectar or pollen and returns to the hive to share its discovery. Through the waggle dance or round dance, the forager bee effectively recruits other colony members to exploit this valuable resource. To further incentivize their fellow bees, the dancing bee offers a sample of the collected nectar. This is done by regurgitating a small amount of nectar from her honey stomach for the watching bees to taste. Additionally, the scent of the flower clinging to the dancing bee’s body, particularly her hind end, provides another crucial clue for the watching bees to identify and locate the correct flower patch outside the hive.
Alt text: Close-up of a flower showing nectar and pollen, the two main resources bees collect, highlighting their importance for bee colonies.
Bee Vision: Seeing the Unseen
Bees perceive the world in a way that is quite different from human vision. One notable difference is their limited ability to distinguish red colors. However, bees excel at perceiving blues, greens, and purples. Furthermore, bees possess the remarkable ability to see ultraviolet (UV) light, a part of the spectrum invisible to humans.
This UV vision is not just a curious quirk; it plays a vital role in flower foraging. Many flowers exhibit patterns in the ultraviolet spectrum that are invisible to the human eye. These “hidden” UV patterns act as nectar guides, leading bees directly to the nectar and pollen rewards within the flower. Bees effectively see floral signposts that guide them to the most rewarding parts of the flower, optimizing their foraging efforts.
Alt text: Flower vision comparison, showing a flower as seen in normal human vision on the left and how bees perceive it with UV vision on the right, revealing hidden nectar guides.
