Development of honeybee waggle dance and its differences between recruits and scouts

Abstract

The lifetime development of the waggle dance of 14 honeybees was automatically recorded just after the imaginal molt using high-definition camera modules connected with a Raspberry Pi computer and numbered radio-frequency identification tags fitted to the back of each bee. For most honeybees, waggle dance follow preceded the appearance of the first waggle dance from 1 week after the imaginal molt. The duration per trip increased just after waggle dance follow. Before the appearance of the first waggle dance, the honeybee repeatedly follows waggle dances that indicate a limited number (2–6) of food source locations. We discriminated between two types of foragers with different roles, recruits and novice scouts, by comparing the vectors indicated by the bees’ first waggle dance (sending vectors) with dances they had previously followed (received vectors). Of 14 tagged honeybees, 11 were categorized as recruits and 2 as novice scouts. For recruits (but not for novice scouts), the duration per trip increased significantly after waggle dances follow and substantially increased just before the appearance of the first waggle dance. Moreover, recruits increased the number of times they followed waggle dances indicating the same location, and their first waggle dance indicated this location. These results suggest that the differentiation of these two types of foragers is partly related to behavioral differences after waggle dance follows: whether trip is activated or not by follows a waggle dance.