Waggle Words & More

Bee communication is one of many aspects of honeybees that fascinates me. While we use words to communicate, honeybees use their sense of smell, body movements and the location of the sun to communicate.

Most people know that honeybees emit pheromones but few know what it really means to the honeybees. A honeybees’ sense of smell is 50 times stronger than a dogs and 100 times stronger than a human. Think about the miraculous ability of a diabetes service dog, make that 50 times more powerful and that is how a honeybee can sense smell. It has me nervous to think how my bees smell me!

Nikolai Nasonov is most associated with the nasonov gland in honeybees but was not the man who discovered it. It was actually William Sladen in 1900 who accurately described it as a pheromone source. Honeybees use this pheromone gland to direct other bees (foragers, drones and mating queens) to the hive entrance. (Fun fact! Each colony of honeybees has a different smell that is based off the pheromones of the queen of that colony.) That is one reason why a beekeeper can have hives located in close proximity to each other and the honeybees know where their home is. If there is someone or something in front of the hive entrance, the bees will stand at the entrance and fan their wings. The fanning is used to help dissipate the pheromone to foraging bees so they can find their way home.

Note the four honeybees at the entrance with their nasonov gland exposed displaying fanning behavior (Masterman, B., 7 Mendel, B., 2025).  

Pheromones also play a crucial role in the colony being queenright. A hive being queenright is essential to colony survival. To the honeybees, a queenright hive implies their queen is healthy, laying eggs and is emitting enough pheromone for the bees to remain calm and busy. A colony with a calm demeanor with a soft, low hum is how I know my colonies are queenright. For me, cantankerous honeybees are a dead giveaway that something is wrong with my queen and I know just from observing the bees at the hive entrance and before I even open the hive. If I am immediately swarmed when looking at the entrance to the hive, instead of the bees going about their bee business, that is usually a warning sign that something could be (and likely is) amiss with my queen.

Queens are known to produce several complex pheromones that are detected by worker bees. The glands are located near her mandibles, her thorax, abdomen and her feet. The worker bees pass along the various scent cues from the queen to the rest of the bees in the colony and those cues direct the behavior of all the bees of the colony (Flottum, 2024). As I see things, if bees are going about their bee business and doing appropriate honeybee things, their queen is alive and well.

A colony who is not queenright does provide clues to the beekeeper to let them know. Word passes along fairly quick throughout the colony that they no longer have a healthy queen and their behaviors change. There can be increased fanning at the entrance of the hive and within the hive, so as to disperse the remaining small amount of pheromones from the most recent queen (Flottum, 2024). They are also quite loud and once you hear the degree of loudness you are likely unable to forget it. Once the hive is opened, their defensive behavior is obvious. The bees from the entrance will greet you in an unfriendly way as will the bees that fly off the frames. They will dart and buzz loudly all around your face which is not at all similar to the calm behavior of a queenright colony. Bees are always telling you something, it’s imperative for the beekeeper to listen (or in this case observe).

One of the more mesmerizing behaviors of honeybees to observe are orientation flights. I feel that orientation flights are the most common behavior that come to mind when people think of bees. Orientation flights are commonly seen on warm, sunny days are have many purposes. They are done to help the bees build a visual map of the location of their hive, in relation to the sun and landscaping nearby. If the hive is moved, the foraging bees will know and will complete anywhere from one to a dozen orientation flights to become familiar with the new location. Some studies have shown honeybees to even complete test flights after orientation flights (not bringing back pollen or nectar) to be sure they can locate the hive and return home. Since bees’ roles change within the hive over their lifespan, new forager bees also complete orientation flights before their first forage attempt.

The bees start by facing the hive and fly in a figure eight pattern close to the hive. The figure eights start off small and tight and gradually become more loose as the flight pattern continues. The bees move farther away from the hive gathering more information as to the location as they continue these flights. The video below shows orientation flights at one of my friends’ hives.

Honeybee orientation flights on a sunny day.

My previous post (Designing the Apiary) briefly discussed how honeybees see flowers of various colors as well as ultraviolet light. But how do they know where the flowers are? That is up to the wise foraging bees of the colony who first venture out to find pollen and nectar for the colony. Once they have found a rich source of food and have loaded up, they return to the hive. Then they work on directing other foragers to the source. This information is communicated through unique bee dances based on the distance the food source is from the hive. Research has shown at least three different dances done by foragers to direct other bees to the food source: the round dance, the waggle dance (wagtail dance) and the sickle dance (Collison, 2025).

When a forager finds a food source within 50 meters from the hive, she will perform a round dance. She will complete one or two clockwise circles followed by one to two circles counter-clockwise. The vigor of her dance is indicative of the quality of the food source. However, the dance does not indicate direction of the food source so other foragers will venture out and find the source and release chemicals to attract other foragers.

The waggle dance is performed when a food source is more than 100 meters from the hive. The waggle dance has two parts: a straight waggle run in the direction of the food source (related to the position of the sun) followed by a circle to the right towards the starting point of the first waggle run, then she completes another straight waggle run and circles to the left back to the starting point (Collison, 2025). The forager will continue her dance until the distance is fully communicated to others in the colony. Unlike the round dance, the waggle dance communicates both direction and distance to the food source.

The sickle dance is a combination of both the round and waggle dances and communicates direction and distance to a food source 50-100 meters from the hive.

Honeybee dance behavior is incredibly complex and research continues to look into the electrical field around dancing foragers, the degree to which other foragers watch dancers and how antennae touching is utilized between the dancer and the watching foragers. There is so much that is known about honeybee communication and yet so much we have yet to discover about how they communicate. I feel as if I have barely scratched the surface but I hope I have inclined you to explore more of bee behavior and communication. The more I learn, the more I am fascinated with honeybees and all they can do.

References

Collison, C., (2025, July). A Closer Look: Dance Communication. Bee Culture, 14-16.

Flottum, K., (2024). The Backyard Beekeeper: An absolute beginner’s guide to keeping bees in your yard and garden. Quarry Books.

Masterman, B., & Mendel, B. (2025, November). Minding Your Bees And Cues: Come Hither!. Bee Culture, 20-22.