Why Bees Mostly Ignore The Waggle Dance

Опубликовано 15 апреля 2026, 16:35

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You've probably heard that bees use a complex series of movements – often called the "waggle dance" – to tell other worker bees where to find new sources of nectar…it’s a super clever and sophisticated system. But it turns out that bees almost never immediately jump up to follow the directions they just got, which, weirdly, is also super-clever and sophisticated.

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To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
- Choreography: The sequence of steps and movements in a dance or other performance.

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Cameron Duke | Script Writer, Narrator and Director
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REFERENCES
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Couvillon, Margaret J., et al. “Honey Bee Foraging Distance Depends on Month and Forage Type.” Apidologie, vol. 46, no. 1, 26 June 2014, pp. 61–70, link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13592-014-0302-5, doi.org/10.1007/s13592-014-030...

Dormagen, David M, et al. “Machine Learning Reveals the Waggle Drift’s Role in the Honey Bee Dance Communication System.” PNAS Nexus, vol. 2, no. 9, 25 Aug. 2023, doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad...

Grüter, Christoph, et al. “Informational Conflicts Created by the Waggle Dance.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 275, no. 1640, 10 Mar. 2008, pp. 1321–1327, doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2008.0186

I’Anson Price, R., et al. “Honeybees Forage More Successfully without the “Dance Language” in Challenging Environments.” Science Advances, vol. 5, no. 2, Feb. 2019, p. eaat0450, doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aat0450

Palmer, Joseph, et al. “Foraging Distance Distributions Reveal How Honeybee Waggle Dance Recruitment Varies with Landscape.” Communications Biology, vol. 7, no. 1, 11 Oct. 2024, doi.org/10.1038/s42003-024-069...

Special thanks to Dr. Robbie L'Anson Price