Worker Honeybees (Apis mellifera) have an important job finding flowers to use for nectar and pollen. In order to locate flowers close to the hive, bees will rely on their sense of smell, to locate food sources and will use landmarks as a guide when returning to the nest. When the bee returns to the colony, the bee will allow several other members of the hive to "sample" the treasure and if that flower is deemed useful, the foraging bee will indicate which direction the flower can be found in. If the flower is close to the hive, the other colony members may be able to find the flower using scent alone, however, this method is not effective over larger distances.
Using the Sun
The position of the sun in the sky is the key to the bee's ability to estimate the location of a flower. A bee is capable of seeing polarized light patterns, so being able to locate the sun merely requires the blue sky background to determine the direction of the sun. As the sun moves positions in the sky, bees will recalibrate their location of the sun using their circadian rhythm and the fact that the sun always moves one degree toward the west every 4 minutes. [2]
The Waggle Dance
The waggle dance is an important tool bees use to communicate long-range homing information to the rest of the hive. As discussed earlier, the position of the sun plays a very important role in locating resources outside the hive and being able to return back to the hive. This information can be instrumental to the rest of the hive because the rest of the colony can save time and energy instead of having each forager bee search independently for food sources.
During the waggle dance, a bee will use the angle between the position of the sun in the sky and the target flower to demonstrate exactly the direction and distance a flower is in relation to the hive. The flower position is indicated by the straight-run "waggle" portion of the dance [2,3].
If the bee is inside the hive (where the sun cannot be viewed on a horizontal surface), the sun will be indicated as the "up" position on a vertical surface and the food source will still be indicated with the waggle part of the dance. [3]
The Circle Dance
The circle dance (also called the round dance) is another form of communication between bees, where a bee will communicate the location of a food source close to the hive. For flowers less than 50 meters, a worker bee will use the circle dance to indicate that there is a good food source available nearby and by the end of the dance, it will distribute a sampling of nectar for other hive members to test. [2,3].
Further Reading
Swarm of Bees. (n.d.). Wix. Retrieved October 26, 2020, from wix.com
Wilson-Rich, N., Allin, K., Carreck, N., & Quigley, A. (2014). The Bee A Natural History. Princeton University Press.
Hill, R. W., Wyse, G. A., & Anderson, M. (2016). Animal Physiology (4th ed.). Sinauer Associates, Inc. Publishers.
GIF from Arizona State University bee dance game. https://askabiologist.asu.edu/bee-dance-game/play.html