Have you heard of the Waggle Dance?

That’s how honey bees talk to each other.

Suppose you are a honey bee that has discovered a flower-rich in pollen and honey during your daily wandering.

You rush back to the hive, excited to tell your friends all about your find and to make them follow you.

For the other bees to find the flower, they need two pieces of information — a direction and a distance.

That’s what the waggle dance is for.

First, position yourself facing the Sun.

Measure the angle between the sun and the flower (as a bee, you are really good at this). Turn your body in that direction.

Now shake your ass (waggle) and move forward for a few seconds. Turn right and come back to the starting point in a semi-circle.

Waggle forward again, now turn left and come back to the beginning.

Repeat.

Every second that you waggle is roughly 1 km in bee speak. So if you waggle for 4 seconds, the flower is 4 km away.

Bees have a special ultraviolet vision that lets them see the sun even inside their hives.

Since all bees know where the sun is, the direction of the sun is usually set as ‘up’ — just like how we think of the North being up on a map.

BEE

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