New Perspectives on the Dance Orientation of the Asian Honeybees

Abstract

Several recent studies of the Asian honeybees, Apis florea, A. dorsata, and A. cerana, have greatly extended our understanding of dance orientation in honeybees. From early studies, the dances of A. florea and A. dorsata were thought to be somewhat primitive in comparison with those of the other species of Apis. Now it is clear that each exhibits capabilities of information processing that are no less sophisticated than any seen in A. cerana and in the European species, A. mellifera. Apis dorsata forages on moonlit nights, even by the light of a half moon, and performs waggle dances that are oriented not to the moon but instead apparently to the hidden sun. Apis florea, once thought to be capable of orienting dances only in the horizontal plane and in the presence of celestial cues, can actually orient without a view of the sun and blue sky by referring to landmarks visible from the exposed dance area. Furthermore, A. florea will dance on steep, even vertical, slopes. In such dances a bee continues to orient to the horizontal projections of celestial cues, instead of to their projections onto the plane on which she is dancing (as the other species do if presented with celestial cues during a vertical dance). In addition to raising a host of new questions about the mechanisms underlying the dances of A. florea and A. dorsata, these results challenge previous assumptions about the evolution of the dance language in Apis.