Honey Bees Extract Map Coordinates from the Dance

Honeybees communicate locations by the waggle dance, a symbolic form of information transfer. Here we ask whether the recruited bee uses only the indicated course vector or translates it into a location vector on a cognitive map. Recruits were captured on exiting the hive and displaced to distant release sites. Their flights were tracked by radar. Both the vector portions of their flights and the ensuing tortuous search portions were strongly and differentially affected by release site. Search patterns were biased toward the true location of the food and away from the location given by adding release-site displacement to the danced vector. The results imply that the bees recruited by the dance access the indicated location of the food on a shared spatial representation. Thus, the bee dance communicates two messages, a flying instruction and a map location.