Question

Describe the dance language of the honeybee (what it is, how it works, it’s purpose,etc) and explain the dance language controversy and how it was resolved.

Answer 1

Honeybees have a dance language by which information about food resources can be transferred from successful foragers to nestmates. The purpose of this dance language is to communicate through a series of dances done by foraging worker bees who return to the hive with news of nectar, pollen, or water.  The dance language of the honeybee is very interesting and is performed by worker bee.

When a worker discovers a good source of nectar or pollen, she will return to the hive to perform a waggle dance to let her nest mates know where it lies. A bee performs the waggle dance when she wants to inform other bees of a nectar source she has found. It (waggle dance) is used for communicating more distant nectar sources or pollen sources. But when a forager, or scout bee, returns to the hive she performs a round dance to communicate the location of food sources close to the colony (less than 35 yards away). The bee moves in a circular pattern. Bees in the nest pay attention to the dancers. The dance followers extract the spatial information from the dance, and use it to get the food. In this way, this dance language works.

Dance language controversy - 1. Dance on horizontal is scattered when bee can’t see sun.

2. Disoriented dances

3. Sometimes light is the major factor that makes the dance disoriented also disrupts the ability to dance

4. The structure of the dance language is very similar among species of honeybees, communication of the distance component of the message varies both intraspecifically and interspecifically.  

How to resolve the controversy: 1. Shine bright light on dance floor.

2. Mechanical bee signals direction of food