The flight paths of honeybees recruited by the waggle dance

J. R. Riley (), U. Greggers, A. D. Smith, D. R. Reynolds and R. Menzel
Additional contact information
J. R. Riley: Rothamsted Research
U. Greggers: Institut für Biologie - Neurobiologie
A. D. Smith: Rothamsted Research
D. R. Reynolds: University of Greenwich
R. Menzel: Institut für Biologie - Neurobiologie

Nature, 2005, vol. 435, issue 7039, 205-207

Abstract: The waggle dance decoded Karl von Frisch won a Nobel prize for discovering that when honeybee foragers return to the hive after discovering a new food source, they perform a ‘waggle dance’ conveying coded information about the range and bearing of the food. He hypothesized that ‘recruits’ attending the dance read the code, and use the information to get to the food. Sceptics suggested that the watching bees simply picked up food odours from the dancer and then searched for the food by smell. Though most biologists are inclined to von Frisch's view of the dance as a source of information, the quantitative description of how the ‘code’ is translated into a flightplan has been lacking. Now with the advent of a radar tracking system capable of following the flight paths of individual recruits, Riley et al. show that the bees not only read the dance, but allow for wind drift on their way to the target.

Date: 2005
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DOI: 10.1038/nature03526

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