Communication
 A worker does the waggle dance before an attentive crowd of foragers. |
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Honeybees have evolved an extraordinary form of communication known as the "waggle" dance. It is highly symbolic, separated as it is in both time and space from the activity it grew out of (discovering a nectar source) and the activity it will spur on (getting other bees to go to that nectar source).| When a worker discovers a good source of nectar or pollen (note the pollen spores dusting this bee's back), she will return to the hive to perform a waggle dance to let her nest mates know where it lies. |
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A bee performs the waggle dance when she wants to inform other bees of a nectar source she has found. The waggle occurs on a special dance floor, which is conveniently located near the entrance to facilitate quick entry and exit of foragers, and only bees with news of highly profitable sources of nectar execute the dance. Arriving back at the nest, a bee with news to share immediately proceeds to the dance floor, where other bees waiting for news gather around her. During the waggle, she dances a figure-eight pattern, with a straight "walk" in between the loops and a sporadic fluttering of her wings. The worker communicates several key pieces of information during the dance. The longer she waggles - typically bees make between one and 100 waggle runs per dance - the farther the flower patch lies from the hive, with every 75 milliseconds she prolongs the dance adding roughly another 330 feet to the distance. She shows how rich the source is by how long and/or how vigorously she dances. Perhaps most astonishingly, she indicates the direction of the source by the angle her waggle walk deviates from an imaginary straight line drawn from the dance floor to the sun at its current position. In other words, if the source lies in the exact direction of the sun, the bee will walk facing exactly straight up (remember that a hive hangs vertically). If it lies 20 degrees to the right of that imaginary line to the sun, the angle of the bee's walk will be 20 degrees to the right of vertical. Finally, the dancer shares the odor of the flowers in question with the other bees, who sample it with their antennae.
Attendees will watch only one waggle dance and only for a brief period before leaving the hive. In this way, the bee works for the good of the hive rather than for the good of herself. If she stayed for the whole dance, she would know exactly how rich the source is, for instance. But if all bees waited for the entire dance to take place, and then only went to the richest sources, the colony would not be maximizing its use of available resources. This behavior is one of many instances of how, when it comes to honeybees, natural selection operates on the level of the colony, not the individual bee.
| With the waggle dance, a worker communicates the distance, direction, and quality of a nectar-rich flower patch to her fellow honeybees. |
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Honeybees perform two other types of dance. A worker does the "shake" dance when nectar sources are so rich that more foragers are needed. A worker arriving back from a foraging run will move throughout the hive and shake her abdomen back and forth before a non-foraging worker for one to two seconds before moving onto more non-foragers at the rate of between one and 20 bees per minute. The shake dance encourages these non-foragers to make their way to the waggle dance floor.
Finally, workers do the "tremble" dance when foragers have brought so much nectar back to the hive that more bees are needed to process the nectar into honey. Walking slowly around the nest, the dancer quivers her legs, causing her body to tremble forward and backward and from side to side. Lasting sometimes more than an hour, the tremble dance stimulates additional bees to begin processing nectar.
Photos: ©1998 ORF.FAQs
A bee must collect nectar from about 2 million flowers to make 1 pound of honey. It requires 556 worker bees to gather a pound of honey. Bees fly more than once around the world to gather a pound of honey. The average worker bee makes about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.
How much honey will a bee make in its lifetime? ›
An average worker bee makes only about 1/12 teaspoon of honey in its lifetime. At the peak of the honey-gathering season, a strong, healthy hive will have a population of approximately 50,000 bees. It would take approximately 1 ounce of honey to fuel a bee's flight around the world.
How many bees does it take to make a teaspoon of honey? ›
Enjoy! It takes 12 bees their entire lifetime to make just one teaspoon of honey. Field bees visit 50 to 100 flowers during each trip.
How much nectar can a bee carry? ›
They store the nectar in a second stomach, sometimes called a honey stomach, that doesn't digest nectar. It serves as a carrying purse and is in front of the digestive tract of the bee. The honey stomach can hold up to 70 mg of nectar and weigh almost as much as the bee itself.
Do honey bees eat honey? ›
Both are stored in the hive where nectar is converted to honey, and pollen is fermented into bee bread. Bees eat honey and bee bread. Bee bread provides protein, while honey is a source of carbohydrates.
What color can bees not see? ›
Bees, like many insects, see from approximately 300 to 650 nm. That means they can't see the color red, but they can see in the ultraviolet spectrum (which humans cannot).
How long is honey good? ›
If you're considering throwing it away, think again. You don't have to toss that honey! Even if honey had been sitting on your shelf for 2,000 years, that honey would still be as good as the day you opened it. In a nutshell, well-stored honey never expires or spoils, even if it's been previously opened.
How far do bees fly to make 1 pound of honey? ›
Honey bees must gather nectar from two million flowers to make one pound of honey. One bee would therefore have to fly around 90,000 miles - three times around the globe - to make one pound of honey. The average honey bee will actually make only one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.
How long does a queen bee live? ›
Queens, who are responsible for producing and laying eggs, live for an average of two to three years, but have been known to live five years. Domesticated honey bee queens may die earlier, as beekeepers "re-queen" the hives frequently.
What is the difference between nectar and honey bees? ›
Answer and Explanation:
Honey bees change the nectar chemically. The difference between nectar and honey is that nectar is collected from the flowers and honey is produced by bees. Honey can be stored for a long period of time. Bees make the honey from the nectar that is collected from the flowers.
Honeybees typically leave their hive to forage during the daytime, specifically when the temperature is above 55°F and there is enough sunlight. They usually start their foraging journey early in the morning and continue throughout the day until late afternoon, depending on the availability of food sources.
What tree produces the most nectar? ›
In order of flowering time, a few excellent species are willow, maple, horse-chestnut, acacia and linden. These trees provide high levels of pollen and nectar that bees need for their existence.
How many honey bees make a pound of bees? ›
The most popular packages are the 2- and 3-pound sizes. Each pound represents about 3,500 bees. A newly mated queen is included in those packages to be used for developing new colonies.
How much honey does 1 bee colony make? ›
It depends entirely on the health of your bees, their hive style, your location, the weather and available forage. You should never plan to harvest in your first year, but you can expect to pull anywhere from 25 - 100 lbs of honey from an established colony in a successful year.
How many flowers does it take to make 1 pound of honey? ›
Honey bees will tap about two million flowers and fly 50,000 miles (80,000 km) to make one pound (454 g) of honey.
A worker does the waggle dance before an attentive crowd of foragers.
When a worker discovers a good source of nectar or pollen (note the pollen spores dusting this bee's back), she will return to the hive to perform a waggle dance to let her nest mates know where it lies.
With the waggle dance, a worker communicates the distance, direction, and quality of a nectar-rich flower patch to her fellow honeybees.