Wag Tail Dance

This dancing bee is telling the other bees where to find more of that pollen that she has on her back legs. She is saying that the pollen is more than 100 yards from the hive (nearer than that and she’d be doing a “round dance”), and that the pollen source is to the right of the entrance of the hive. That is said by the straight line she draws (while wagging) after turning the half-circle. If she goes straight up the frame, the pollen source is toward the sun; straight down and it’s away from the sun. To the left the pollen (or nectar) source is to the left of the sun; to the right and its to the right of the sun. This hive is facing east, and you can see that she is wagging to the right, in relation to the top of the frame, which is the wide wooden bar at the top of the video. I did notice that morning that the bees mostly were indeed flying that direction. The dance tells much more, such as the shortest flight path to the pollen, but how I don’t know – not sure anyone knows . We could learn some things from the bees, as Deacon Perryman likes to say.

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