Successful Forager runs a “Waggle Dance” in the beehive to convey the vector (direction and distance) of a valuable source of food to its nestmates, the trailer bees. Credit: Li Yuanlang
The Waggle Dance, which is listed by successful Forager Honeybien (Apis Mellifera) in the beehive, is a well -known form of symbolic communication that informs Nestmates about the location of the resources. It is known that the dance only encodes the distance and direction (the vector). However, it remains unclear whether Follower bees integrate the vector information in their own spatial memories of sights in order to optimize navigation.
Published in a study in Current biologyResearchers from Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Free University of Berlin showed that dance tracking bees combine the dance vector with their cognitive memory of landmarks and that the successor bees have an expectation of the landscape characteristics after learning information on the information on the infections of the difficulties.
The researchers formed a small group of “dancers” bees to a feeder (simulating a natural food source) north of the beehive, which had to fly along a prominent gravel road. They published the dance tracking of bees from three different websites. One location was anchored by the beehive environment with a north-south path as a landmark, and one of the others clearly lacked it. The other location is a control location where the bees were released directly from the beehive where the path was present.
The researchers found that the bees did not blindly pursue the communicated vector. When the specified food source was near a well -known path, they lived on this path and followed this path. In the absence of an expected landmark, her search behavior became more exploring.
At the release location with the familiar path notification, the flight patterns of the bees, in particular their flight distance and straightness, were similar to which the bees from the beehive. They flew more directly and searched more efficiently. In contrast, bees flew at the location without the clear path, the landmark continued and flew in less straight paths, which led to a wider and less precise search.
“Our study shows a higher level of cognitive complexity in communication honey.
Further information:
Zhengwei Wang et al., Waggle-Dance-recruited honeybees expect landscape structures, Current biology (2025). DOI: 10.1016/J.CUB.2025.08.055
Provision of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Quote: Honey bees use dance communication to demand the expectations of the landscape, study shows (2025, September 29) on September 29, 2025 by https://phys.org/news/2025-09-honeybees-communication-landscape.html
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