I read today that bees will "dance" to communicate to one another. How exactly does a bee "dance"?
:devilbanana: :pinkelephant: :yippiechick: :piano: :piano: :yippiechick: :pinkelephant: :devilbanana:
They do a dance called a "Waggle Dance". There may be other reasons for doing this dance, but I know that one reason they do this dance is to inform the hive of a good foraging source.The dance itself tells the hive the exact location to the source and I believe they do this by using the sun to locate it. I don't know much about it but you might try to do a search on either this forum or google.
I am sure other beeks will come forth soon to tell you about it.
Waggle dance! Kinda like western swing with a little line dance thrown in.
A waggle dance consists of one to 100 or more circuits, each of which consists of two phases: the waggle phase and the return phase. A worker bee's waggle dance involves running through a small figure-eight pattern: a waggle run (aka waggle phase) followed by a turn to the right to circle back to the starting point (aka return phase), another waggle run, followed by a turn and circle to the left, and so on in a regular alternation between right and left turns after waggle runs. Waggle-dancing bees produce and release two alkanes, tricosane and pentacosane, and two alkenes, Z-(9)-tricosene and Z-(9)-pentacosene, onto their abdomens and into the air.[4]
The direction and duration of waggle runs are closely correlated with the direction and distance of the patch of flowers being advertised by the dancing bee. Flowers located directly in line with the sun are represented by waggle runs in an upward direction on the vertical combs, and any angle to the right or left of the sun is coded by a corresponding angle to the right or left of the upward direction. The distance between hive and recruitment target is encoded in the duration of the waggle runs[1]. The farther the target, the longer the waggle phase, with a rate of increase of about 75 milliseconds per 100 meters.
Waggle dancing bees that have been in the hive for an extended time adjust the angles of their dances to accommodate the changing direction of the sun. Therefore, bees that follow the waggle run of the dance are still correctly led to the food source even though its angle relative to the sun has changed.
Yeah, what AllenF said! Bees also communicate using the beemaster forum. Their secret messages are encoded in seemingly meaningless statements attributed to Bjornbee. :-D
fishermuskyspitzlernestyblumoon.... :-D
The waggle dance has always been seen exclusively for communicating distance and direction of floral sources.
But there are actually many different types of dances, some including humming and noise.
A few have been identified as being exclusively for the swarm process. Bees communicate their decision as to which cavity is best suited, the recruitment of which site is to be used, etc.
Bees also have vibrations asking to be groomed. And queens have the ultimate communications when they "pipe". There is a pipe for a queen in danger, and perhaps even a different piping sound for challenging another queen.
If you actually watch (and listen) when bees do the "waggle dance", there is a hum to the action which conveys information.
There are at least 5-6 well documented dances and hums conveying different communications. And the number is probably many more than that.
The consumption of ethanol by foraging bees has been shown to reduce waggle dance activity and increase occurrence of the tremble dance.
The tremble dance of the honeybee is similar to the waggle dance, but is used by a forager when the foraging bee perceives a long delay in unloading its nectar or a shortage of receiver bees, sometimes due to low numbers of receiver bees. It may also spread the scent released during the forager's waggle dance. Like the waggle dance, the tremble dance is likely one of two "primary regulation mechanisms" for regulating bee colony behavior at the group level, and one of four or five observed mechanisms known to be used by honeybees to change the task allocation among worker bees.
I don't care how many times I hear (or read) about it...it's fascinating! Really cool when you pull a frame and watch it.
Scott
Found an informative entry at wikipedia on the Waggle Dance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waggle_dance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waggle_dance)
You put your right wing in, you put your right wing out, you put your right wing in and then you shake it all about....... :-D
i don't know about all that but the last dance i saw a bee do was a lap dance and i didn't like it much.
Quote from: jgaito on July 21, 2010, 09:03:59 AM
i don't know about all that but the last dance i saw a bee do was a lap dance and i didn't like it much.
That's a new one :-D LOL
who was the person on here that got stung in the wiener ?
Uh, that would be me :oops:
Ummm....hardwood huh! Figures...... :roll:
Quote from: BjornBee on July 22, 2010, 08:59:38 AM
Ummm....hardwood huh! Figures...... :roll:
:lau: :cheer: