The sun is out and that means our little honey bees are out collecting Fluffy Fresh Bee pollen. In order to find flowers that have the most pollen and nectar, bees must be able to communicate with each other. They perform a truly remarkable form of communication in what can only be described as a dance, and they perform this dance in order to recruit other bees to the best flower patches.
So, what are these dances then? The first dance is known as the waggle dance and bees use it to communicate how far the flowers are away from the hive and in what direction. The bee will waggle back and forth in a straight line to show how far away the flowers are. The shorter the line, the closer the flowers and vice versa. Bees also know what directions up and down are in the hive and they show direction by turning at a specific angle. Outside of the hive, the bees use the sun as a guide by flying away from it, but the angle always stays the same as to how it was demonstrated in the hive.
The other dance that bees will do is the round dance, and that tells other bees that the flowers are close by. The bee will move in a circle and then reverse direction and circle again. In both dances, the length and enthusiasm with which they’re performed indicates the quality of the nectar or pollen the foraging bee found. The more bees that participate in the dance, the better the quality tends to be.
As you’ve probably gathered by now, bees have a fascinating way of communicating with each other. The next time you’re reaching for your Fluffy Fresh Bee Pollen, you can be sure the bees were performing their happy dance when they found it.
