BEEHAVIORS
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of BEEHAVIORS best the blog THE WAGGLE DANCE
L
ast summer, we put our apiar y through some major changes. We broke some “traditional” beekeeping rules and tested some new ideas. One of the chances we took was moving a colony from one hive to another, but only two meters away from the original one.
An old saying teaches beekeepers to move the hive less than three feet (one meter) or more than three miles (10 kilometers), and if true, our bees were doomed to die for the sake of that extra meter traveled. Luckily, thanks to their amazing ability to re-orient better than my car’s GPS on a roundabout, they survived! However, upon the grand opening of their new hive, a number of them greeted us with a funky ‘butt dance.’
What we can’t see with the naked eye is that they are exposing their Nasonov gland, located just at the tip of their abdomen. It creates and releases a strong pheromone, which sends a “this is home” message to any other bees which might have been locked out of the hive for the last couple of days. Nobody said it was a smooth move! The same activity happens when worker bees of a newly formed swarm find a hive. They indicate its location by wafting the pheromone towards the swarm. Once the scent reaches the remaining bees, they know in which direction to fly and immediately move into the new home.
Upon the grand opening of their new hive, a number of them greeted us with a funk y ‘but t dance’
Long before Miley Cyrus popularized twerking on stage, similar behavior was observed in the natural world. In birds, this could be a romantic dance; in dogs, it could indicate the presence of parasites. But in bees, this can mean several things. Let’s have a look at some of the messages passed on in the ‘waggle dance.’
Hey, homie!
Check out this new restaurant! The most common use of the waggle dance is for a worker bee to inform the bees in the hive about a food or water source nearby. They change the circular moves slightly, depending on the distance between the colony and the flower.
In our case, a few guard bees perched just outside the entrance, lifting their backsides and shaking them vigorously, while also fanning their wings.
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