4/06/2014

So you think you can DANCE? part 1

Communication is a key in a human world. Speech is the way we transmit information our feelings and thoughts. Human being very quickly discovered the miracle of communication and even mastered learning foreign languages. 




Within time, we started wondering about the world around us, and the way it communicates. Even though it’s not the intelligence but the instinct that drives all the smallest creatures, it is all pretty amazing to me. 

Until we start the research we take it all for granted and as if it was all normal so to speak. All of a sudden we start realizing that behind any smallest insect’s behaviour is a whole lot of science.



The complexity and meaningfulness very often drive our curiosity to discover and learn the way of their mysterious yet genius way of communicating. In order for us to learn their life no matter how short it may be, we need to learn their language. And so I started thinking about a little honey bee, how does she know where to go to get her food from and if she does find out where it is, what is her way of communicating with the rest of her tribe.



 It took centuries for human being to discover the language of this small amazing creature.

It appears that bees simply dance! Yes they dance! They dance not only because they are happy they discovered a meadow, new flowers, nectar or orchards. This is also their way they transmit information to tell their companion about it so they all together can fly and collect before their competition will find out and get there first.

 Lavender meadow near by bee hives, but still far away for a little hard working creatures.
Poppy seed flowers, very beautiful and fragile, a bee has a short time to take advantage of its nectar. 
 Sow- thistle - very characteristic for beautiful May in Poland
Bee is not only enjoying the fragrance of lilac, but also she will carry food to her tribe. 

When we think about it, we can find some comparison in human behaviour as well. We can dance and we can express our emotions this way, there are still actually tribes where this is a very important part of their rituals and their life. We also have various dances for different occasions. Just like honey bees!


The dance is the language of bees. This phenomenon consists of consecutive bees movements on one or two of honeycomb cells. This way a bee calls other individuals to join her and do the same thing with their limbs. This way they create magnetic resonance in entire hive. The dance informs other individuals from the same nest about existence of certain occurrence.


The angle of the dance and its curves is a signal, which describes location of food in relation to the Sun. The type of convulsion describes how difficult the road will be, how long and so forth. The slower the movement, the longer the road and opposite.

If the head of the bee is up while she is dancing it means the food will be in the direction of the Sun, if her head is down it means the food will be in opposite direction to the Sun. 

There are four main characteristics of bee dance: a form, choreography, a turn and speed.  A bee can estimate the distance between the hive and her destination by observing the speed of the landscape while on her way to the aimed object.

There are four types of dances: recruiting, alarming, purgative and swarm.

Stay tuned as in my next article I will explain on which occasion bees dance what dance. Just as we dance waltz or rumba on two different occasions and we show two different emotions small bees do exactly same thing. 

 You may enjoy it hot.
But some like it cold.

Meantime while you are enjoying your tea with honey think how long of a distance a small bee had to do to make it so enjoyable for you.




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