Mechanisms

Waggle Dance

The waggle dance itself will give a large amount of information about a food source and its profitability. The increase in profitability of a food source increases the amount of waggle dances a bee will do for that source. The more profitable food sources also cause the inspector bees, or the bees that were former foragers if a specific food source, to continue to return back to the food source to check its quality. If it becomes profitable again, they will resume foraging at that source (Boris Granovskiy, Tanya Latty, et. al, 2012). The dance itself also becomes shorter in duration with the increase in profitability of the food source, with the duration of the return phase of the dance being directly correlated to the profitability (Seeley, T. D., Mikheyev, A. S. and Pagano, G. J., 2000).

Through naviagtion using path integration and landmarks, the bees are able to encode spatial directions for the other forager bees on how to find the different food sources (Rodrigo De Marco, Randolf Menzel,2005). Honeybees can also use the polarized-light pattern of the sky as a type of compass. These navigation cues can be expressed in the dance, although due to the lack of information polarized light can give about the direction of the food source, honey bees signal all possible locations of the food source (C. Evangelista, P. Kraft., 2014).

Figure 1. The waggle dance conveys the sun’s angle and the distance from the food source through the angle of the waggles and the duration of the dance itself. This information is passed to the investigator bees that have their antennae on the dancing bee during its dance. With increase in distance, the waggle dance duration will usually increase. For longer distances, the traditional waggle dance (A) is used. Shorter distances can be communicated by using the round dance (C) that is less precise (Srinivasan, 2011)

Sensory Cues

Often olfactory cues are picked up from scents in the environment around the food source to help foragers determine the location, but the waggle dancing bees themselves also release an olfactory cue. Dancing bees release 2 alkanes, tricosane and pentacosane, and two alkenes, Z-(9)-tricosene and Z-(9)-pentacosene, from their abdomens and into the air during the waggle dance. This scent is dissimilar from the foraging recruitment scent of bumblebees, however it does increase the amount of honey bees that leave to forage when in combination with the dance. The scent may cause more bees to witness the dance and come to the waggle dancers. The smell also attracts the receiver bees to the dancefloor as there will be more foragers who need to have the nectar unloaded. The more vigorous dancers that have found the more rich food sources often emit a higher concentration of this scent. (Thom, Corinna et al., 2007)

Auditory cues from the thoracic vibrations and the wing are recepted by the followers Johnston’s organ in the antennae which contains neurons that mechanically sensitive to cues in the range of 265-350 Hz frequencies. Researchers found that more matured foragers with mature Johnston organs were more able to detect the 250-300 Hz signals that are being created during the waggle dance (Tsujiuchi, Seiya et al.,2007).

The part labelled A is a bees Johnston organ. Figure 2. A diagram of the anatomy of the honeybee’s antennae region indicating where the Johnston’s Organ is located. This is where the auditory cues that are made during the dances can be detected by follower bees (Richard, Hunt, 2013).

Thoracic and wing vibrations also contribute to the sensory information that the follwer bees recieve. The wing vibrations used during the dance use the airflow produced to convey the movement direction of the waggling forager to the follower behind them (Michelsen, A. J Comp Physiol A, 2003). Thoracic vibrations of the dancing honey bees give off information about the profitability of the food source. Researchers believe that this may be used to help motivate foragers bees into following the cues as well as helping to organize the collective foraging of the bees (Michael Hrncir, Camila Maia-Silva, et. al, 2011).