The female forager bee returns to the hive with sample of nectar she thinks will make good honey. She and the other forager bees give out free samples. Each has a different source quite often. The worker/gatherer bees can tell the difference of even small amounts of sugar in each sample. Once the bees select the one that they want to collect they gather around her and wait instructions.
Bees have a very strong flower fidelity. They will collect only nectar from the tree/plant/flower that they sampled from the forager bee that gave the sample. They can only do that if they know where the source is located.
As some one pointed out, Von Frisch discovered that the bees could communicate the location of the source through a dance, accompanied by sound. The bee orientates by the sun and walks in that direction. When she reaches a certain distance she returns, not in a straight line but in a series of circles and waves. Even in complete darkness the collector bees can read her message as to the location of the source.
If they have taken the nectar from a clover that is all they will collect. They will fly through a field of dandelions or apple blossoms and ignore them completely. That is why you can buy specific honeys: Orange, tupelo clover etc. Because of the flower fidelity is so strong, growers pay beekeepers to bring their bees into their fields to fertilize them with little fear that the bees will fertilize some other crop.
The forager bees do their dance to give the collectors a chance to collect the riches sources of foods with the least expenditure of energy. This insures the hives chances of survival is the greatest it can be with the food available. Millions of years of evolution have given the bees the genetic means to communicate the source through the "Waggle Dance."
Some experts have spent their entire lives trying to disprove the studies of Von Frisch. Although they have found some minor weaknesses in the theory, it still stands as strongly as when he was awarded the Nobel prize. Each detractor is trying to win a Nobel prize by disproving his waggle dance..
It's to tell the other honeybees where food is located. The "waggle dance" tells the other hive members what direction the food is, how far away it is, and how much food is there.
they dance for communicative reasons there is a link here that has the entire explination of the waggle dance, discovered by nobel prize winning Zoologist Carl von Vrisch
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The female forager bee returns to the hive with sample of nectar she thinks will make good honey. She and the other forager bees give out free samples. Each has a different source quite often. The worker/gatherer bees can tell the difference of even small amounts of sugar in each sample. Once the bees select the one that they want to collect they gather around her and wait instructions.
Bees have a very strong flower fidelity. They will collect only nectar from the tree/plant/flower that they sampled from the forager bee that gave the sample. They can only do that if they know where the source is located.
As some one pointed out, Von Frisch discovered that the bees could communicate the location of the source through a dance, accompanied by sound. The bee orientates by the sun and walks in that direction. When she reaches a certain distance she returns, not in a straight line but in a series of circles and waves. Even in complete darkness the collector bees can read her message as to the location of the source.
If they have taken the nectar from a clover that is all they will collect. They will fly through a field of dandelions or apple blossoms and ignore them completely. That is why you can buy specific honeys: Orange, tupelo clover etc. Because of the flower fidelity is so strong, growers pay beekeepers to bring their bees into their fields to fertilize them with little fear that the bees will fertilize some other crop.
The forager bees do their dance to give the collectors a chance to collect the riches sources of foods with the least expenditure of energy. This insures the hives chances of survival is the greatest it can be with the food available. Millions of years of evolution have given the bees the genetic means to communicate the source through the "Waggle Dance."
Some experts have spent their entire lives trying to disprove the studies of Von Frisch. Although they have found some minor weaknesses in the theory, it still stands as strongly as when he was awarded the Nobel prize. Each detractor is trying to win a Nobel prize by disproving his waggle dance..
It's to tell the other honeybees where food is located. The "waggle dance" tells the other hive members what direction the food is, how far away it is, and how much food is there.
To communicate specifically what direction and distance a food supply is.
Here are some good links and the first even has a video.
they dance for communicative reasons there is a link here that has the entire explination of the waggle dance, discovered by nobel prize winning Zoologist Carl von Vrisch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waggle_dance
To Communicate with the others.