More than Honey

Nothing is simple. And certainly not communication. Not even in bees.

Not?! you ask. But what about the waggle-dance? The famous „dance-language“ of the honeybees? The one we learnt about in school? Hasn’t all that been worked out a long time ago?

(Image source)

Well – yes. And no.
As I said – it’s complicated (and for those who read German – this has caused quite a kerfuffle in the press here last year).

Because there is variablity. Bees behave differently. Sometimes they follow the instructions of the dancers, and sometimes they don’t.

Now, it is well established that they receive information from the dancer, that they can „read“ it correctly and use it to navigate to the appropriate location.

But they don’t always do this. They don’t always use the information. Or not right away. Or together with other input.
So they do not always fly directly to the place that the dancer communicated. They seem to make choices. For example, they choose between flying to a new food source as communicated by a dancer, or to an older one that they have visited before. And not only that: when they find out that their old food source is gone, they can change their flightplan on the spot, without going back to the hive, and correctly navigate to the new source where they have never been before.

Fascinating, isn’t it?

But it also raises a whole lot of new questions: On what do they base their decision? Quality? Quantity? Mood? What exactly is it that they remember and how do they calculate the new course? Vectors? Landmarks? Both? And how does all this fit into a 950 000 neuron brain?

It is not that long that people are able to ask those questions, let alone search for the answers. Because to be able to do so, you must be able to observe an individual bee in flight in a radius of at least a few hundred meters. Those of you who have their own bees probably have some experience with this. Those of you who don’t may well go out and try (yes, go ahead, it’s August, they are still out there!).

It is not an easy task. To be honest, it is virtually impossible. You may be able to mark them and wait for them at the feeder (as Karl von Frisch has done and many bee researchers after him), but you will have no way of knowing what every single one of these bees has been doing until it gets there.

Unless you have a harmonic radar. In a very flat field. And your bees carry not only a number, but a transponder too. Then you stand a chance. To find the right questions. And – possibly – some answers.

Mehr Informationen über die Arbeit von Prof. Randolf Menzel:
“Was denken Bienen, wenn sie tanzen?”
SZ-Interview über den Schwänzeltanz
Bee learning and communication (Wikipedia)