When a bee finds an area rich in flowers, it flies back to tell the other bees in the hive. This happens through a special dance, where the bee shows how far and in which direction the other bees must fly to find the flowers.
To find out how bees learn to dance scientists created two coloniesone with only day-old bees and one where day-old bees were allowed to observe older and more experienced dancers.
After nine days, the young bees had to show off their dancing skills, in order to show their peers the right way.
Danced wrong
James Nieh, professor of biology at the University of California in San Diego, and his colleagues then discovered that the bees who had observed other more experienced bees danced flawlessly the first time.
Young Bin, who had no one to learn from, on the other hand, often danced wrong. They showed the wrong direction, distances that were too long and also made more mistakes when it came to the order of the movements.
– This makes a difference, because if you show the wrong direction and distance, the other bees will not find the flowers you want them to find, says James Nieh.
Showed the wrong distance for the rest of their lives
After 20 days, the same bees were tested again. By then, even the bees that had no teacher for the first nine days of their lives had time to train their skills and became better at dancing: except for one point.
– They always communicated distances that were too long, says James Nieh.
The bees continued to show the wrong distance for the rest of their lives. James Nieh compares this to the critical phases of learning found in humans. For example, certain sounds in foreign languages can be difficult to pronounce if we have not learned them already as children.
– It could be that communication regarding distance is cemented for the bees in this critical phase, says James Nieh.
Watch the bees dance away in the clip above.
