Dance of bees

2001/05/31 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Zoologia
• Ekologia

Bees work together and communicate where the food is. One of the theories about the communication system between bees says that bees know where food is, or through smell, but the most widespread theory bases communication on bee dance. In this dance they indicate the distance to which food is located and say that the distance is proportional to the speed of movement. A group of American researchers have been able to interpret this dance and the results of the research have been published today in the journal Nature.

The researchers discovered how to trick the bees, making them believe they were traveling further than they were actually doing. To do this they passed through the boarding of a narrow tube. Bees calculate the distance depending on the landscape they have crossed, that is, from the optical flow, measuring in some way the speed at which the landscape moves away. The optical flow indicates the apparent motion of an image as the observer's position changes. Nearby objects generate more flow than far ones, so we consider that the next ones move faster, for example, on the train.

Bees, however, do not perceive depth, only measure flow. As a result, when flying into the narrow 8-metre tube, they interpreted the distance travelled to be much greater, as the tube walls moved away very quickly. When the food was detected and the hive was alerted again, the bees of the next round always came too far.

Researchers estimate that the bees that crossed the 8-metre pipe exceeded 72 meters. The spotted bees departed in the same direction as the previous ones and circulated 70 meters. In view of this, researchers have concluded that bee dance provides information on the optical flow that a member perceives in its trajectory, not the absolute distance of the route.