by Jim Mize

• Introduction
• Female Dominance
• Doing the Bee Boogie
• Makin' Honey but Not Biscuits
• Steer Clear of Swarms
• Download this article as a

Doing the Bee Boogie

Since the hives are composed mostly of women, it should also come as no surprise that they like to dance. In fact, Karl von Frisch won a Nobel Prize in 1973 by figuring out the language of bee dancing. (Stay tuned…this could be the scandalous part). He determined that bees know two dances, neither of which are the Shag.

In the first dance, worker bees dance in a circle indicating the source of nectar they have found. In the second dance, they indicate the distance to the nectar by wagging their tails. In hindsight, this tail-wagging dance may have inspired the invention of the Shag.

To aid their studies of bee dancing, scientists invented a robotic bee that could perform these dances. Sometimes, just for kicks, the scientists would get the robotic bee to send all the others in the wrong direction, proving only that scientists are easy to amuse.

The male bees, on the other hand, communicate mostly by sounds. Probably, this is due to their being lousy dancers.