Why Honey Bees Often Ignore the ‘Waggle Dance’ by Other Bees That Reveals Food Sources

Cameron Duke of MinuteEarth, who previously shared why there are queen bees but no king bees and why some hives rebel, explained why some honey bees will ignore “waggle dance” instructions from other bees and why this ignorance is actually very clever.

You’ve probably heard that bees use a complex series of movements – often called the “waggle dance” – to tell other worker bees where to find new sources of nectar…it’s a super clever and sophisticated system. But it turns out that bees almost never immediately jump up to follow the directions they just got, which, weirdly, is also super-clever and sophisticated.

A bee’s “waggle dance” shares important information about where a source of nectar is, which is helpful to both the bee and to the hive. However, if this information is widely shared, there may be nothing left at that location. Duke likens this to crowdsourcing.

A bee analyzes the information conveyed by a waggle dance. They weigh the risks of venturing into the unknown versus sticking with what they know, and then make a decision. And the vast majority of the time, bees end up passing on that suggestion, which probably isn’t different than how you use crowdsourced information. …It’s the same with bees.