Phylogeny

Ancestors to modern honeybees most likely performed excitatory movements to encourage other nestmates to forage. These excitatory movements include shaking, zig-zagging, buzzing and crashing into nestmates. Similar behavior is observed in other Hymenoptera including stingless bees, wasps, bumblebees and ants. (Gruter, C., Farina, W. (2009)).

This movement has thought to evolve into the waggle dance, used to aid in communicating information about a new nest site, rather than spatial information about foraging sites, like we would see in the round dance. (Gruter, C., Farina, W. (2009)).

Observations have suggested that different species of honeybees have different "dialects" of the waggle dance, each species or subspecies dance varying by curve or duration. A study from 2008 demonstrated that a mixed colony of Asiatic honeybees (Apis cerana cerana) and European honeybees (Apis mellifera ligustica) were gradually able to understand one another's "dialects" of waggle dance. (Su, S., Cai, F. et. al (2008))

Figure 7. Phylogenetic tree of bees and how their dance have differentiated based on species: 1. excited runs on the nest by succesful foragers; 2. workers probe nectar that has been brought into the nest; 3. sound/vibration pulses produced by returning foragers; 4. trophallaxis; 5. length of buzzes correlates with distance to food; 6. "dance"-following, or at least "turning responses" towards the successful forager; 7. figure-eight waggle dance pattern; 8. dance performed on horizontal surface; 9. waggle dance performed on vertical combs. An additional event at the very root of the tree may have been the spread of a pheromone which is distributed by successful foragers (Chittika, Dornhaus, 1999).