Which insect performs a waggle dance?
Quick answer
The honeybee performs the waggle dance to tell other bees in the hive where to find food, such as flowers rich in nectar and pollen. The angle of the dance shows the direction relative to the Sun, and the length of the waggle shows the distance. Austrian scientist Karl von Frisch decoded it and won a Nobel Prize in 1973.
How the dance works
A forager returns to the hive and dances on the vertical honeycomb, often in darkness. Other bees follow closely, sensing her movements and buzzing.
| Dance feature | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Straight “waggle run” | The bee shakes her body from side to side |
| Angle from vertical | Direction of the food relative to the Sun |
| Duration of the waggle | Distance: about one second can mean roughly a kilometer, varying between colonies |
| Loops back | She circles left and right to repeat the run |
| Liveliness | How good the food source is |
Straight up the comb means “fly toward the Sun.” A waggle angled 60° to the right means “fly 60° to the right of the Sun.”
The round dance
For food very close to the hive, bees perform a simpler round dance, circling without waggling, which means “food nearby, search around.”
Adjusting for the moving Sun
Bees have an internal clock. Dancers shift the angle as the Sun moves across the sky during the day, so the directions stay accurate.
Karl von Frisch
Von Frisch studied bees for decades. In the 1940s he showed how the dance encodes direction and distance, and later that bees can see ultraviolet light and polarized light. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen.
Why bees matter
Honeybees and other bees pollinate a large share of the world’s food crops. Learn how pollination works in which part of a flower produces pollen.
Other dances
Bees also use the waggle dance to choose a new home. When a colony swarms, scouts dance for different sites, and the colony eventually agrees on one, a kind of democratic decision.
Bees produce honey, a food that can last for centuries when stored properly.
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