Round dance (honey bee)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (April 2008) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Round dance is a term used in bee keeping, entomology and communication of social insects. It describes a specific communicative behavior of honey bees inside the bee hive. When a forager or scout bee returns to the hive she performs a round dance to communicate the location of food sources close to the colony (less than 50-80 m). The bee moves in a circular pattern.

The waggle dance is used for communicating more distant nectar sources or pollen sources.