Organization in the Colony There are three kinds of bees in a colony.
The queen is the only female in the hive that can reproduce and lays thousands of eggs. A new queen is 0selected by the workers when the old queen dies or the hive is too large and part of the colony must leave.
The male bee, the drone, has only one purpose. This purpose is to mate with the queen. There are fewer drones than any other bee in the hive. Once the drones have mated with the queen they are eventually driven away from the hive.
Worker bees perform all the other roles in the colony. They construct the hive, feed the queen, care for the young, and forage for nectar and pollen to create honey.
Bee Dance Scout bees fly to flowers using the position of the sun. They can determine their direction, how much energy they use, and the time of day. When they get close to a food source, the bees use their ability to detect smells and their ability to see to pinpoint the location of the pollen and nectar.
When the worker bee returns to the hive with nectar and pollen from the flowers, she begins to perform one of two "dances" that will communicate the direction, distance, and amount of the food available for the other bees. When the food source is close, less that 35 yards away, the round dance is used. The returning bee turns in circles changing to the left and then to the right. The richer the food source, the longer and more vigorous the dance. The round dance does not communicate any specific direction, but the forager bee does provide the flowers scent, which other bees use to find the flowers.
The waggle dance is used to communicate the location of food sources more than 35 yards away. It consists of two loops with a straight run in the middle, much like a figure 8. The direction of the straight run determines the direction to the food source. The rate of looping and duration of buzzing indicate the distance to the food supply.
Dr. Karl von Kirsch It was Dr. Karl von Kirsch, an Austro-German zoologist, who first decodedthe honeybee dance. Dr. von Krisch won a Noble Prize for his work in this behavior in 1973. But, Dr. von Kirsch has not gone unchallenged in his work. Dr. Adrian M. Wenner from the University of California believes that the waggle dance simply allows the other bees to get the scent of the food and not direct them to the food.