Flight of the honeybee - Reading Test Answers

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As a result, they maintain strict divisions of labour, based on sex, with all males functioning as drones to fertilize and care for the eggs, and all females, with the exception of the single fertile queen, responsible for fetching nectar for the colony’s progeny.

He then trained those foragers to find nectar at designated sources at various distances from the hives, and when the bees returned he carefully recorded their movements, the angle and direction of their flight, and any additional visual cues offered to the colony.

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The first piece of information conveyed by dancing bees is the distance of the field to the hive, and they do this in one of three ways.

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He then trained those foragers to find nectar at designated sources at various distances from the hives, and when the bees returned he carefully recorded their movements, the angle and direction of their flight, and any additional visual cues offered to the colony.

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The length of the forward run coincides with the distance of the food supplies; for example, a 2.5 second run indicates that the nectar was found about 2500 meters way.

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Recruits also need to know the direction in which they should fly to arrive at the appropriate foraging location, and this information is communicated via the bee’s angular orientation to the hive. It, however, is not a direct connection to the position of the food supplies from the hive, but its location relative to the sun.

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If the field is farther than 150 meters, the forager will act out a waggle dance in which she will run straight ahead briefly before returning to her original position in a semi-circular movement.

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Several scientists, among them Adrian Wenner, believe that the dance is only one component of honeybee communications; odour is the second key element.

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As a result, they maintain strict divisions of labour, based on sex, with all males functioning as drones to fertilize and care for the eggs, and all females, with the exception of the single fertile queen, responsible for fetching nectar for the colony’s progeny.

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She will repeat this pattern, which von Frisch’s team called the round dance, until she has recruited several other workers to return with her to the field.

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He also discovered that the odors must be representative of the actual flowers containing the food source; otherwise the bees will arrive at the site, but not know which ones will be profitable.