“No good sensible working bee listens to the advice of a bedbug on the subject of business” Elbert Hubbard
Check Out These Sweet Moves!
Starting at 1:30, this video shows how
the worker bee communicates the location
of food sources to the rest of the hive.
the worker bee communicates the location
of food sources to the rest of the hive.
When the foraging bee comes back to the hive, it starts performing the waggle dance in order to recruit other bees to fly to the food source. The dance consists of a series of figure eight-shaped moves (see the video below). The duration of the waggle runs determines the distance between the hive and the food source. If the food source is close, the bee does not seem to provide precise information regarding the direction (circle dance). But if it is further away, this information is provided in a very sophisticated way. The upward, vertical line represents the direction of the sun. If the bee moves vertically along this line, this means that in order to find the food, one must fly from the hive in the direction of the sun. Otherwise, the angle that is formed between the vertical line and the path actually taken by the bee represents the angle to the right or to the left of the sun that one needs to select in order to fly in the correct direction. Now the dance can take a relatively long time, and the position of the sun consistently changes. And the bees know that, and have a way to cope with this fact. As the direction of the sun changes, the bee also adjusts the angle of its dance, and this way, the information regarding the food source is kept correct.
Do You Smell That?
Bees "smell" many things. Guard bees sit or hover near the hive entrance and "smell" other bees trying to enter the hive. If the bees don't have the correct odor of that particular hive they are expelled. The new virgin queens produce a special odor called a sex pheromone to attract drones during the mating flight . Bees also use odors to help locate their hive, or their new home after swarming. To humans this pheromone smells lemony.
When a bee stings, she releases an odor called an alarm pheromone to alert others to the danger. This alarm pheromone smells like bananas and attracts other bees to come to the defense of the hive. This pheromone stays on clothing, so if you are stung you should wash your clothing before wearing it again.
The queen bee has her own pheromones in addition to the smell she produces when ready to mate. The queen also maintains behavioral control of the colony by a pheromone known as the "queen substance." As long as it is being passed around, the message in the colony is that "we have a queen and all is well." When a beekeeper wants to requeen a colony by introducing a queen from another source, he or she must place the queen in a cage within the colony for up to five days in order for the worker bees to get used to her odor.
When a bee stings, she releases an odor called an alarm pheromone to alert others to the danger. This alarm pheromone smells like bananas and attracts other bees to come to the defense of the hive. This pheromone stays on clothing, so if you are stung you should wash your clothing before wearing it again.
The queen bee has her own pheromones in addition to the smell she produces when ready to mate. The queen also maintains behavioral control of the colony by a pheromone known as the "queen substance." As long as it is being passed around, the message in the colony is that "we have a queen and all is well." When a beekeeper wants to requeen a colony by introducing a queen from another source, he or she must place the queen in a cage within the colony for up to five days in order for the worker bees to get used to her odor.