Waggle Dance

Day 112

10 September 2009

It has been a very, very busy day, today, and so this is a pretty uninspiring photo. I was drinking some Waggledance whilst I was doing some work, this evening, when I realised I didn't know what a waggle dance is. That is to say, I know it is a bee-related movement, but I wasn't sure of the significance of it. So I looked it up, and it is actually the dance of the forager bee (the mature worker bee that has done its tidying and nursery duties and then gets to leave the colony to collect nectar to make honey; and pollen to serve as a protein source). The bee does a figure-of-eight dance to the other bees to tell them where the last collection point was. It relates to the angle of the sun. The point at which the bee begins turning right from the lateral line tells the bees the angle they need to take in relation to the sun in order to find the source. Clever stuff, huh?

So now I know. I will sleep better tonight, knowing what I have learned today.