Ask any beekeeper, and they will tell you the same thing: honey bees are amazing creatures. Whether it be honey production or reproduction, honey bees have a singular way of doing things, of using their intelligence and teamwork to maximize hive efficiency.
Experts continue to be interested in their unique language methods. Even a cursory overview of how honey bees communicate with each other will show there is so much more to these little critters than meets the eye.
Communicate Through Odor
Odor plays a vital role in how the queen bee communicates with her workers. The queen releases a variety of pheromones into the bee colony that spread different messages. She uses pheromones to tell drones she is ready to mate, to discourage other females from mating, and to tell the colony she is alive and well.
Worker bees also use pheromones to signal messages to their siblings. When a worker stings, it secretes a chemical that warns other bees of the threat. Furthermore, some researchers believe scout bees carry the odors of flowers they visited back to their hives. These smells may help other bees locate the plants with the greatest pollination value.
Communicate Through Dance
The primary way honey bees communicate with each other is through movement. When a scout tells her colleagues where she found pollen, she does so by using a series of motions referred to as the “waggle dance.” To accomplish this, the honey bee walks in a straight line on the honeycomb, vigorously shaking her abdomen and making a buzzing sound with her wings.
Amazingly, the length walked and the speed of her movements can communicate distances of up to 150 meters away. There are two variations of this dance: a series of narrow circular movements that direct the colony to food 50 meters away, and a crescent-shaped pattern that alerts workers to food 50 to 150 meters away. All this makes for a more cohesive, efficient workforce, which, in the long term, benefits humans by allowing plants the opportunity to reproduce.
