The “language” of bees

Abstract

The classic model of the “dance language” of honeybees is as follows: Honeybees inform their hive mates about the location of a newly discovered feeding site with a dance. Recruits reach the target based on this information. Bee research over the last decades provides a significantly more differentiated picture. The bee dance alone has no high information content. However, in the dark hive it is the indispensable beginning of a communication-chain between experienced and non-experienced bees, which – according to the new three phase model – continues in the field until the goal is reached (see poster p. 46/47).