How do honeybees share the location of food?

1. A worker bee finds a patch of flowers full of sweet nectar. There is far too much for one bee. But how can she tell the others where it is?
2. She flies straight home with nectar in her tummy and pollen packed on her back legs. On the way she remembers where the sun was.
3. Inside the dark hive she dances on the honeycomb. She walks in a straight line, waggling her body, then loops back and does it again. Her sisters follow closely.
4. Straight up on the comb means fly toward the sun. If she waggles to the right of straight up, the flowers are to the right of the sun, by the very same angle.
5. The length of the waggle shows the distance. A quick waggle means the flowers are close. A long waggle means a long flight.
6. Her sisters read the dance, smell the flowers on her, and fly out the right way and the right distance. Soon the whole patch is buzzing.

Tap each part of the dance floor inside the hive. Every part moves when you find it.

• The dancer. The dancer is a worker bee who has just come back from a good patch of flowers. Her dance is an invitation: come and help collect this food!
• The waggle run. In the middle of the dance she walks in a straight line, shaking her body from side to side. The direction of this line is the direction of the food.
• The loops back. After each waggle she circles back to where she started, first to one side and then to the other. That makes a shape like the number 8.
• The followers. It is dark in the hive, so the other bees cannot see the dance. They follow right behind the dancer, feeling her movements with their antennae and smelling the flowers on her.
• The upright comb. The wax honeycomb hangs straight down, like a wall. The bees can feel which way is up, and they agree that up means the direction of the sun.
• The sun compass. Outside, the bees use the sun like a signpost. They fly at the same angle from the sun that the dancer showed from straight up.

Drag the flower patch around the meadow. The round window shows the dance inside the hive. What changes in the dance?

Experiment: What happens to the dance when you drag the flowers farther from the hive?

1. Drag the flowers close to the hive and watch the waggle.
2. Drag them far away, in the same direction. Watch again.
3. Now drag them to the left and to the right of the sun. What changes this time?

What we found: Farther flowers make a longer waggle, and nearer flowers make a shorter one. Moving the flowers to the left or right of the sun turns the waggle to the left or right of straight up.

Turn on JavaScript to try it yourself.

You are a follower bee. Watch the dance, then tap the flower patch it points to. Check the direction and the length of the waggle.

A honeybee colony has thousands of workers, and they all need food. When one bee finds a good patch of flowers, the best thing for the whole colony is to send many more bees there. But bees cannot talk or draw. So the bee who found the flowers dances.

She dances on the honeycomb, which hangs straight down like a wall. In the middle of the dance she walks in a line and waggles her body. The bees agree on a rule: straight up means toward the sun. If she waggles straight up, the food is toward the sun. If she waggles to the right of straight up, the food is to the right of the sun by the same angle.

The length of the waggle shows how far to fly. A short waggle means the flowers are near, and a long one means they are far away. If the nectar is extra sweet, she dances again and again, so more sisters notice.

It is dark in the hive, so the other bees feel the dance instead of watching it. They touch the dancer with their antennae, smell the flowers on her and taste a drop of nectar. Then they fly out and look for flowers with that smell in the place the dance described. Giving directions to a friend is a good comparison, but it is not perfect: bees are not using words. The dance is built into them, although young bees get better at it by following older dancers.

Key words

Forager

A worker bee whose job is to fly out and collect food.

Waggle run

The straight, wiggling part of the dance that shows the way.

Nectar

The sugary liquid that flowers make. Bees turn it into honey.

Honeycomb

Sheets of six-sided wax cells where bees store food, raise their young and dance.

Azimuth

The compass direction of something, such as the sun.

Recruit

A bee that follows a dance and then flies out to find the food.

Check your thinking

1. Why does a bee do the waggle dance?

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   To tell other bees where to find food. The dance is a message about where good flowers are, so more bees can collect the food.

2. A bee's waggle is very long. What does that tell the others?

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   The flowers are far away. The longer the waggle lasts, the farther the bees must fly.

3. A bee waggles straight up the comb. Which way should her sisters fly?

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   Straight toward the sun. On the comb, straight up stands for the direction of the sun.

4. It is dark inside the hive. How do the other bees follow the dance?

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   They feel it with their antennae and smell the flowers on the dancer. Followers stay close to the dancer and sense her movements by touch and smell.

5. The flowers stay in the same place all day, but a bee's dance for them slowly turns. Why?

   Show the answer

   The sun moves across the sky, so the angle between the sun and the flowers changes. The dance angle is measured from the sun's direction. As the sun moves, the same place needs a different angle.

6. What happens when the nectar is extra sweet?

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   The bee dances longer and more bees follow her. Better food gets a longer, livelier dance, so more sisters go to the best flowers.