Migration Dances [excerpts]

Recent studies of two tropical honey bees have uncovered evidence of
a different style of dance communication in the indication of
migratory direction. One of these species is the African hive bee A.
mellifera scutellata, and the other is the Asian rock bee A. dorsata.
In both species, colonies make seasonal migrations of tens or
hundreds of kilometers in response to regional shifts in rainfall and
the availability of floral resources.

Migrating colonies of both A. dorsata and A. mellifera scutellata
depart directly from the natal nest on a long flight in the migratory
direction. In both species, the dance has been modified to play a
role in organizing the initial move. The migratory dances begin a few
days before colony movement, and by the time the colony takes off,
dozens of bees perform dances. These dances signal the compass
direction in which the colony ultimately departs, and hence resemble
nest-site dances on reproductive or absconding swarms. They differ in
interesting ways, however.

First, whereas dances on swarms contain accurate information about
both the direction and the distance of the new nest site, the
migratory dances are accurate only with respect to direction.
Migratory dances are much more variable with respect to the distance
signal than are dances to discrete resources. Furthermore, the
average duration of the waggling run is extremely long, corresponding
to flight distances of many tens or hundreds of kilometers. Such
distances are well beyond the flight distances that bees could be
expected to travel from the nest.

http://ento.annualreviews.org/cgi/reprint/47/1/917.pdf

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Peter Borst <[log in to unmask]>