HONEY BEES 



provides an additional clue which helps in its discovery, 

 Finally, the bees themselves produce a scent which may give 

 additional help to the foragers. 



If the source of food discovered by a forager is more than 

 about one hundred yards away, it performs a different dance 

 on its return. This is the " tail- wagging " dance, and con- 

 sists of running along a track shaped like a figure of eight 

 with the part where the two loops join straight. As the bee 

 runs along the straight piece she wags her abdomen. It was 

 found that the further away the source of food was, the more 

 slowly the dance was performed, but the more wags of the 

 tail were made on the straight part of the run. The figures 

 range from about eleven figures of eight in 1 5 seconds for 

 a source at 130 yards, to four completed in the same time at 

 2,000 yards. The number of tail-wags in the straight run 

 varied from two to three when the source was at 130 yards 

 to ten to eleven when it was at 830 yards. These are average 

 figures, and theyare subject to some variation. Moreover, 

 round about 100 yards transitions are sometimes seen be- 

 tween the two types of dance. 



A relatively simple experiment demonstrates that the 

 dances do convey information about distances. It is neces- 

 sary to have a special observation hive with glass walls, so 

 that the dances can be seen. Then suppose a source of syrup 

 is exposed at 200 yards. After a time, scout bees find it and 

 they, and later other bees, begin taking syrup back to the 

 hive. The first dozen or so bees which come are caught and 

 if necessary killed. Next a new source is exposed much 

 nearer the hive and the number of new bees which come to 

 the two sources in the next few minutes is compared. It is 

 found that many more bees go to the distant source than 

 to the near one, though in general with random searching 

 near sources are discovered much more quickly. This is 



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