Decoding the dance parameters of eastern honeybee, Apis cerana

Abstract

Bees dance to deliver food vectors that contain information regarding distance gauging and spatial orientation. The eastern honey bee, Apis cerana, also transmits this vector information through waggle dance. Although many reports have published on this topic, changes in dance parameters of A. cerana that occur at different distances are unclear. Herein, we filmed the bees’ foraging dance at different distances until the bees stopped collecting food, analyzed these videos frame by frame, and set a feeder in four cardinal directions to record the changes in bees’ dance with the azimuth of the sun. The duration and number of waggle runs of the dancers significantly correlated with the distance from hive to feeder. The dance parameter exhibited a linear model with distance. As the sun’s azimuth changed, the angle of the waggle run changed counterclockwise. We elucidate how to combine distance and direction to calibrate the spatial distribution of the resource location advertised by dance. Finally, we discuss the dance and navigation of long-distance collection and provide a basis for further understanding of the foraging ecological strategies of eastern honeybee.