The Dancing Bees

Do you now that the bees too dance?

Well, they do not do it for entertainment or fun like us, but the dance is a way they communicate. 

They use it to:

1. Signal about the location of a potential new home. 
2. Communicates about the distance and location of food and also water. 

Types and importance of Dance 

The Round Dance – When food is within 50–75 meters of the hive, the bees dance the "round dance" on the surface of the comb. This round dance is adopted if the food source is close to the nest or hive.  Interestingly, the closer the source of food, the more cycles of the dance is performed. 
When the distance is further away – more than 80m, they will add tail wags to the dance.

The Tail-Wagging Dance (or Waggle Dance)- When the food is farther than 75 meters from the hive, the bees dance the "waggle dance".This dance includes tail wagging forming the centre of a 'figure of eight' type series of movements. The bee increases the waggle part of the dance by 1 second for every km of distance. 

The waggle dance has two components:
i. a straight run — the direction of which conveys information about the direction of the food
ii. the speed at which the dance is repeated which indicates how far away the food is.