Honeybees use creative dance moves to help others find food

Honeybees are renowned for their intricate waggle dance, a specialized form of communication that directs nestmates to valuable food sources. 

The basic idea is simple: after returning to the hive, a forager bee performs a dance in which the angle of movement indicates the direction of food, and the duration of the “waggle run” conveys the distance. 

If the display succeeds, observer bees become recruits, flying out to locate the advertised resources. 

However, despite millions of years of evolutionary refinement, the waggle dance does not always work. Researchers have long been puzzled by why some recruited bees fail to find the food their nestmates enthusiastically promote.

Studying the honeybee dance 

In a recent study, a team led by associate professor Margaret Couvillon from Virginia Tech’s Department of Entomology set out to investigate what drives waggle dance success or failure. 

Working with co-researcher and former PhD student Laura McHenry, they uncovered new insights into the role that individuality plays in honeybee communication. 

By analyzing how unique dance styles can affect the outcome of foraging missions, the scientists found that variety – not uniformity – often leads to better recruitment.

Why some waggle dances fall short

Although the waggle dance has been studied for over 80 years, many facets of it remain mysterious. Bees move through the hive with excitement, shaking their abdomens and buzzing their wings to “tell” others where to go. 

Yet the precision of this communication can sometimes leave much to be desired. Even if the directions appear clear, it is common for newly recruited foragers to miss the target. What might be causing these failures?

“Although the waggle dance itself is fascinating, my lab has additionally been intrigued about waggle dance miscommunication, or the hows and whys behind the failure of the dance recruitment,” Couvillon said. 

This line of inquiry motivated her and McHenry to design experiments that tracked individual bees, their dance styles, and how these styles translated into foraging success.

Setting up the experiment

To unravel the secrets of honeybee miscommunication, Couvillon and McHenry devised a controlled setup using clear-walled observation hives. 

By making the hive walls transparent, the researchers could capture high-definition video of the dance floor. Individual bees were tagged so the team could monitor which foragers arrived at the food source, watched a dance, and later performed their own version of the waggle dance for others.

First, certain bees were trained to gather from an artificial feeder placed at a known distance and direction from the hive. These trained bees returned to share their discovery, dancing in front of others to highlight precisely where the recruits should fly. 

If a new, tagged bee reached the feeder after viewing a dance, the researchers examined the video footage to identify which dancer had successfully recruited them. Step by step, the investigators could pinpoint the specific waggle run that led to a forager’s triumph.

Initially, Couvillon hypothesized that bees whose dance styles closely matched each other might generate more consistent, accurate directions. 

Under that scenario, recruits would easily interpret similar movements and glean an unambiguous sense of distance. But what the data revealed was something else entirely.

Overshooting the mark

When the team reviewed the footage, they discovered that successful foraging recruits often came from dances that overshot the true distance. 

Instead of telling nestmates to stop exactly where the food was located, these dances had slightly lengthier waggle runs. 

The result? Recruits traveled past the feeder, then had a second opportunity to notice it on the way back. This “double chance” approach appeared to boost the overall likelihood of success.

By contrast, bees that performed dances describing the precise distance did not always see such robust success. 

The research suggests that in a dynamic and unpredictable environment, a little extra distance in the waggle run might be an advantage, increasing the chance that bees will encounter the resource eventually.

Honeybee dance diversity

Overall, these findings highlight how unique individual styles benefit the colony. Far from undermining communication, variation in waggle dance expression may improve group outcomes. 

If every bee performed the dance identically, the success rate might drop, as foragers would rely on one strict formula. But with multiple interpretations and slight “errors” in distance, recruits gain repeated opportunities to locate the food.

“We’ve known for a while that behavioral and genetic diversity benefit honeybees, allowing for superior thermoregulation, disease resistance, growth, and foraging,” said Couvillon. “Now we have also seen that diverse communication enhances recruitment success.”

This discovery adds another layer to the importance of individual variation in social insects. Much like genetic diversity provides resilience against disease, communication diversity can enhance how effectively colonies exploit their environment. 

In the end, a colony filled with slightly different dance styles stands a better chance of finding the best resources consistently – and ensures fewer bees come back empty-handed.

Future research directions

The results open new avenues of investigation into honeybee communication and social organization. Future research could examine exactly which factors lead some bees to overshoot the target, or how colonies adjust dance strategies under changing conditions, such as resource scarcity. 

Could environmental stressors push bees toward more conservative or more exaggerated dances? Do certain hive conditions encourage either uniformity or diversity in waggle dance expression?

Whatever scientists uncover, one thing seems clear: the honeybee waggle dance remains a marvel of collective intelligence. 

By embracing the quirks and individualities of each dancer, honeybee colonies harness the power of distinct signals to enhance foraging success. 

Through dance, they build resilience and adaptability, ensuring that the next generation can keep the colony humming along – one step, one waggle at a time.

The study is published in the journal Current Biology. 

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