Scientists have long understood the purpose of the distinctive honeybee “waggle dances”: they serve as a form of social communication. Through these intricate movements, bees learn where to find the best pollen, nectar, or water. However, it remained unclear whether this dance was an innate behavioral trait or something learned. Now, a team of American and Chinese researchers has determined that the honeybee dance is genetically inherited, but the skills are refined throughout the bee’s life. For honeybees, this lifespan averages around 30 to 40 days. Young bees learn the art of waggling from experienced dancers. As the researchers noted, honeybees engage in social learning by observing the older residents of the hive, gradually mastering this complex form of communication.
When a honeybee returns to the hive after scouting the area, it begins its “waggle dance.” This not only informs other bees about the location of nectar sources but also allows younger bees to study the useful movements for future replication. The researchers pointed out that the transfer of knowledge from one generation to the next is a hallmark of culture—a behavior well-known to humans but also observed in animals. As James Nieh, a professor in the Department of Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution at the University of California, San Diego, stated, animals, like humans, are capable of passing on information crucial for their survival. This new study has demonstrated that social learning is also inherent in insects.
What the researchers discovered was how the skill transfer process occurs. They created five experimental colonies of young honeybees. The scientists observed that bees who had not yet mastered the dance made erratic movements, as reported by the Independent. As these bees aged, their “moves” became more refined. The learning process began around the eighth day of life, when the bees started to perform their first tentative wiggles. By the twentieth day, they were already adept at waggling, swaying their bodies, and drawing figure eights to convey information about food locations to other members of the community. This was shared by Dr. Dong Shihua from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the lead author of the study.
Each movement in the dance conveys specific information, including direction, distance, type, and quality of food. The results of the study were published in the journal Science.
By the way, there are about 20,000 species of bees worldwide, residing on every continent except Antarctica. Nectar serves as an energy source for bees, while pollen provides proteins and other essential nutrients.