Abstract
Progress in understanding dance communication in honeybees is reviewed. The behaviour of both dancers and follower bees contain flexible and stereotypic elements. The transfer of specific information about direction and distance probably involves more than one sensory modality. The follower bees need to stay behind the dancer (within the angle of wagging) during at least one waggle run in order to perceive the specific information. Within this zone, a small stationary air-flow receiver (like the antenna of a follower bee) experiences a well-defined maximum when the abdomen of the wagging dancer passes by. Within 1 mm from the tip of the abdomen, the maximum may be caused by oscillating flows generated by the wagging motion. At other positions and distances (up to several millimetres from the dancer) the maximum is due to a spatially narrow jet air flow generated by the vibrating wings. The time pattern of these maxima is a function of the angular position of the receiver relative to the axis of the waggle run and thus a potential cue for direction. In addition to the narrow jet air flows, the dancers can generate a broad jet. The jets are not automatic by-products of wing vibration, since they can be switched on and off when the dancer adjusts the position of her wings.
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Acknowledgements
I am most grateful to Professor Friedrich Barth for the invitation to present a lecture at the Austrian Academy and to present a summary of our work in this review; to my colleague Ole Naesbye Larsen for comments on the manuscript; and to my collaborators Martin Lindauer and Kristin Rohrseitz for comments on the manuscript and for their patient support during the attempts to publish our results. The Centre for Sound Communication is financed by the Danish National Research Foundation.
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Dedicated to the memory of the deceased physicist Jesper Storm, who discovered the jet air flows in models of dancing honeybees
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Michelsen, A. Signals and flexibility in the dance communication of honeybees. J Comp Physiol A 189, 165–174 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-003-0398-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-003-0398-y