Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Progress in Understanding How the Waggle Dance Improves the Foraging Efficiency of Honey Bee Colonies

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Book cover Honeybee Neurobiology and Behavior

Abstract

The waggle dance of the honey bee is one of the most extensively studied forms of animal communication, but only recently have investigators closely examined its adaptive significance, that is, how it improves the foraging efficiency of a honey bee colony. Studies at the colony level, in which investigators have compared the effectiveness of food collection between colonies with normal and disoriented dances, have found that the waggle dance improves a colony’s foraging performance when food sources are hard to find, variable in profitability, and ephemeral. Studies at the individual level, in which investigators compared the effectiveness of food collection between bees that do and do not use waggle dance information to find new food sources (recruits and scouts) have found that following a waggle dance to find a new food source raises the cost of doing so but that this cost is outweighed by a benefit in the quality of the food source that is found. The emerging picture of the adaptive significance of the honey bee’s waggle dance is that it makes it possible for a colony to function as a collective decision-making unit that is skilled at deciding how to distribute its forager workforce over an array of widely scattered, highly variable, and ever changing patches of flowers.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 189.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 249.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 249.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Beekman M, Bin Lew J (2008) Foraging in honeybees – when does it pay to dance? Behav Ecol 19(2):255–262

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Beekman M, Ratnieks FLW (2000) Long-range foraging by the honey-bee, Apis mellifera L. Funct Ecol 14(4):490–496

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Biesmeijer JC, Seeley TD (2005) The use of waggle dance information by honey bees throughout their foraging careers. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 59(1):133–142

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Biesmeijer JC, de Vries H (2001) Exploration and exploitation of food sources by social insect colonies: a revision of the scout-recruit concept. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 49(2–3):89–99

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. De Marco RJ, Farina WM (2001) Changes in food source profitability affect the trophallactic and dance behavior of forager honeybees (Apis mellifera L.). Behav Ecol Sociobiol 50(5):441–449

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Dornhaus A, Chittka L (2004) Why do honey bees dance? Behav Ecol Sociobiol 55(4):395–401

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Dyer FC (2002) The biology of the dance language. Annu Rev Entomol 47:917–949

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Esch HE, Bastian JA (1970) How do newly recruited honeybees approach a food site. Z vergl Physiol 68:175–181

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Esch HE, Zhang SW, Srinivasan MV, Tautz J (2001) Honeybee dances communicate distances measured by optic flow. Nature 411(6837):581–583

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Gardner KE, Seeley TD, Calderone NW (2007) Hypotheses on the adaptiveness or non-adaptiveness of the directional imprecision in the honey bee’s waggle dance (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Apis mellifera). Entomol Gen 29(2–4):285–298

    Google Scholar 

  11. Gil M, Farina WM (2002) Foraging reactivation in the honeybee Apis mellifera L.: factors affecting the return to known nectar sources. Naturwissenschaften 89(7):322–325

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Gould JL (1975) Honey bee recruitment: the dance-language controversy. Science 189(4204):685–693

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Grüter C, Balbuena MS, Farina WM (2008) Informational conflicts created by the waggle dance. Proc R Soc B 275(1640):1321–1327

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Grüter C, Farina WM (2009) The honeybee waggle dance: can we follow the steps? Trends Ecol Evol 24(5):242–247

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Johnson DL, Wenner AM (1966) A relationship between conditioning and communication in honey bees. Anim Behav 14(2):261–265

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Krause J, Ruxton GD, Krause S (2010) Swarm intelligence in animals and humans. Trends Ecol Evol 25(1):28–34

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Mautz D (1971) Communication effect of wag-tail dances of Apis mellifera carnica(pollm.). Z vergl Physiol 72(2):197–220

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Menzel R, Giurfa M (2006) Dimensions of cognition in an insect, the honeybee. Behav Cogn Neurosci Rev 5(1):24–40

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Michelsen A (2003) Karl von Frisch lecture. Signals and flexibility in the dance communication of honeybees. J Comp Physiol A 189(3):165–174

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Reinhard J, Srinivasan MV, Zhang S (2004) Scent-triggered navigation in honeybees. Nature 427(6973):411

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Ribbands CR (1954) Communication between honeybees. I: The response of crop-attached bees to the scent of their crop. Proc R Entomol Soc Lond A 30:1–3

    Google Scholar 

  22. Riley JR, Greggers U, Smith AD, Reynolds DR, Menzel R (2005) The flight paths of honeybees recruited by the waggle dance. Nature 435(7039):205–207

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Seeley TD (1983) Division of labor between scouts and recruits in honeybee foraging. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 12:253–259

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Seeley TD (1995) The wisdom of the hive. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  25. Seeley TD, Mikheyev AS, Pagano GJ (2000) Dancing bees tune both duration and rate of waggle-run production in relation to nectar-source profitability. J Comp Physiol A 186(9):813–819

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Seeley TD, Visscher PK (1988) Assessing the benefits of cooperation in honeybee foraging – search costs, forage quality, and competitive ability. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 22(4):229–237

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Sherman G, Visscher PK (2002) Honeybee colonies achieve fitness through dancing. Nature 419(6910):920–922

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Tanner DA, Visscher PK (2010) Adaptation or constraint? Reference-dependent scatter in honey bee dances. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 64(7):1081–1086

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  29. Towne WF, Gould JL (1988) The spatial precision of the dance communication of honey bees. J Insect Behav 1:129–155

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Visscher PK, Seeley TD (1982) Foraging strategy of honeybee colonies in a temperate deciduous forest. Ecology 63(6):1790–1801

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. von Frisch K (1946) Die Tänze der Bienen. Österreich Zool Z 1:1–48

    Google Scholar 

  32. von Frisch K (1967) The dance language and orientation of bees. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  33. von Frisch K (1968) The role of dances in recruiting bees to familiar sites. Anim Behav 16:531–533

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Wenner AM, Wells PH (1990) Anatomy of a controversy: the question of a “language” among bees. Columbia University Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Thomas D. Seeley

Authors
  1. Thomas D. Seeley
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Thomas D. Seeley .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Department of Neurobiology, Universität Konstanz, Universitätsstrasse 10, Konstanz, 78457, Germany

    C. Giovanni Galizia

  2. , Department of Neurobiology, Freie Universität Berlin, Königin-Luise-Str. 28-30, Berlin, 14195, Germany

    Dorothea Eisenhardt

  3. , Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition An, CNRS - Université Paul Sabatier, Route de Narbonne 118, Toulouse Cedex 9, 31062, France

    Martin Giurfa

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Seeley, T.D. (2012). Progress in Understanding How the Waggle Dance Improves the Foraging Efficiency of Honey Bee Colonies. In: Galizia, C., Eisenhardt, D., Giurfa, M. (eds) Honeybee Neurobiology and Behavior. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2099-2_7

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation