Strange Science: Why Do Bees Dance? Plus 6 More Things You Didn't Know
They can pick you out of a line up, help catch a serial killer, and go home and dance.
Honey bees are very intelligent. Like a drunk remembering his favorite dive bar, a bee will remember exactly where his favorite flower is, and can even give directions to the other bees in the colony.
Bees are extremely important to all life. They say that if bees were to become extinct, life on Earth would cease within two years. Bees pollinate the flowers so fruits and vegetables can come to fruition (pun intended) and 7 species of bee, including the Honey Bee, are on the Endangered Species list.
The amazing creatures are good for more than sweetening your tea and making life on Earth to continue! Read on to learn more about the amazing bee.
Bees have feelings.
Bees have different personalities, just like humans. Some are naturally happy and optimistic, and some become pessimistic when upset. Their personalities and moods change with circumstance- a gardener harvests it's favorite patch of flowers for instance, or when weather is bad making it impossible to fly and collect nectar. Some bees are even thrill seekers while others prefer the comfort of the predictable familiar.
Bees recognize humans.
Bees can recognize your face. They use what scientists call configular processing and put together pieces of the whole- eyes, ears, lips- to make a memory of the individual. Computer scientists are using this research to make greater facial recognition software.
Remember this next time you try to swat at a bee. If you miss him, he might go get his thrill seeking friend and search you out...
Reverse aging.
Bees brains age in reverse. When they do different jobs from their own, their brains stop aging and can even reverse- essentially turning back the signs of time. Scientists are using these findings to help in curing dementia.
Bes are natural math whizzes.
Can you quickly determine the shortest routes to all six of your errands around town today? Bees can. They can quickly decide the shortest routes to their favorite flowers in order to make the days nectar gathering more time efficient.
Bees boogie.
Bees are expert communicators, but lack thumbs to draw maps. So they developed a way to tell the other bees how to get to the primest batch of flowers- they do a lttle dance.
The other bees gather 'round and watch the shimmy and shake, and depending on if the dancer does the mamba or the mashed potato the rest of the hive mates instantly know the exact direction and distance.
To Catch a Killer
No, I'm not talking about killer bees.
The FBI is using bee behavior to create computer algorithms to help catch serial killers.
You can say that bees and serial killers share an MO. The murderer will commit crimes close to home, yet just far enough away so that neighbors are unaware and not grow suspicious. In the same way, bees collect pollen near their hive but far enough away that predators and neighbors cannot find their hive. By studying this pattern, or "buffer zone", police gained a better understanding of both bee and serial killer behavior and improved the models police use to find killers.
Do you know any cool facts about bees? Share in the comments!
Sources: NationalGeographic.com, mentalfloss.com, www.si.edu, Mental Floss
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@arbitrarykitten mam...
Another execellent article...smart work mam....
Honeybees are known to communicate in a dance language called the waggle dance to point out the location of resources that keep the hive alive, but new research reveals that gravity can mess with this dance's accuracy.
The waggle dance is an important part of how they provide for the bee community. Foragers go out, find food, water or other resources, and come back to signal the location to the rest of hive to go out and harvest.
"She will come back and do this dance which is communicating to her nest mates the direction and distance of where this resource is located,"..
The waggle dancing bee walks along the vertical honeycombs quickly vibrating her body and wings. The bee repeats this walk many times with her body angled in the same direction, indicating and re-indicating the same angle.
The dance signals the direction of the food patch in relation to the sun, which is always interpreted by the other bees as straight up (regardless of where it is in the sky). If the dancing bee positions its body straight up, that indicates to the other bees to fly straight toward where the sun is on the horizon. If the dancer angles her body with face pointing down toward the ground, which means the food patch is located directly opposite the sun's position on the horizon.
Keep it up dear...
Cheers~~~
Great write up! Bees are definitely amazing creatures, and worthy of much study and respect :)
Great article. The world needs to understand the importance of the Honey Bees. Honeybees face many challenges including increasing lack of forage because of modern farming practices.Failure to guard against the demise of honey bees will rank as mankind's single greatest failure. The danger to food supplies is huge.
Absolutely. The vast amount of genetically modified seeds had caused starvation in Bee colonies, as the flowers do not attract bees or they are not edible. A natural Bee just cannot consume something unnatural. Great reminder!
Wow that is such a good article about the bees and why we need bees in our world.
One more interesting fact is that the bee sting has benefits too . There is a toxin in bee venom called melittin which may prevent HIV. The bees are the most economical and hard workers.
I did not know that about HIV, how amazing! I just read a few articles after seeing your comment- this is one of the largest scientific discoveries of the century!
Thanks for sharing!
Well now you know. Keep posting the good stuff and keep sharing the good news.
Great stuff! Bees love dandelions. When I learned this I let them grow until they start to puffball. Then they gotta go!
Great idea, and good to know!
I've personally never hated dandelions like many people. I use them for medicinal purposes and make wine sometimes. It's packed with nutrients.
But now I'll leave a bunch for the bees- we seriously need to help them out as much as we can- they are here for us if you really think about it ;)
I lived in a town for a time that had a "dandelion days" weekend - they still do i think!
What town was this? I'd like to share it with some newspapers!
They even have a web page these days! I shoulda known :-) http://www.carbondaledandelionday.com
Bees are certainly important to our survival, it makes me so mad when i find out friends kill them. Its also important to not kill these flowers, and even plant more of them on the outskirts of your home, or in unused fields you know of.
Impressive share!
I think Humanity has too heavy an attachment to technology as a life facilitator. Instead of pondering on ideas as to how nature can recover from Humans' exploitation of Earth, most ideas are spent on how the natural life circle can be manipulated even more. Instead of proposing ideas as to how we can keep the natural flow intact, like you do with the lawnmowing, scientists instead opt for creating pollinating drones which aim at replacing bees or butterflies. All this is merely a product of indifference towards nature's decline and in turn amplify technology use to 'facilitate our lives.
Thing is, depopulation of even one species alone has drastic repercussions on the entire biotope. But any intrusion in natural processes always leds to disharmony in the cycle of life. Of course, nature always finds its ways but particularly the pace at which havoc is wreaked on Nature entails scant recovery...
I agree with all of this. At the rate we're going, will technology even be able to keep up??
How are you? I see that you have slowed down on here a lot and am hoping that it is due to other work you have and not to feeling too poorly to post.
Hugs to you!!
Hey hun!
Eegads, yes, I took a turn. But I'm starting to feel almost to the point where I was before the turn, lol.
It's a tough road, but I'm stepping <3
Thank you so much for your support, I appreciate you sweets :) XO
Sending lots of hugs and healing energy your way!! This must be so hard and I truly wish that you have some support from people close by.
@arbitrarykitten mam...
Such a wonderful and interesting article...
Understanding the Waggle Dance....
Frisch found that the waggle dance communicated, very precisely, the location of a food supply, the distance of a resource from the nest and the angle of the sun in relation to that resource. “The duration of the waggle, when the bee buzzes and shakes her abdomen, communicates the distance of the flowers,” Winston says. “If she buzzes for two seconds, the flowers may be around 100 meters away,” he adds. “She also buzzes at an angle that corresponds to the direction of polarized light rays from the sun.”
So, the distance of a resource is communicated by the timing of the dance, the direction by the angle of the dance, and the quality of the resource by how enthusiastically the dancing bee buzzes and shakes her abdomen.
“It’s remarkable that an organism with a brain the size of a pinhead can locate, very precisely, the distance and direction of a patch of blooming flowers,” Winston says. “Bees are also capable of using the sun as a compass, and they can remember landmarks,” he adds. “Bees are extraordinary creatures.”
The Importance of Bees...
It’s clear that bees are highly sophisticated and social creatures. How bees contribute to Mother Earth, however, is quite simple: “Bees pollinate flowers, and that simple interaction is so important for the world’s plants and crops,” Winston tells me. But, unfortunately, a number of low-level stressors are bringing about catastrophic outcomes for bees.
Winston tells me that, if bees disappear from the face of the earth, at least a third of our food will vanish along with them. “Some non-bee-pollinated crops like wheat and corn would survive,” he says, “but the fruit, the vegetables, the flowers, those would all be gone.” These plants and flowers create habitat for other insects and animals, and Winston predicts that this kind of scenario would have dire consequences for the entire food chain.
Wel done and perfect work mam...
Thank you :)
Who is the Winston you refer to?
Did not know all that about bees! I know that life as we know it is pretty dependent on bees, but had no idea so many of their attributes were being used in research and science. Much newfound respect for bees!
=^..^=
They totally deserve it!
I now have a new respect for bees. I never knew all of that.
So "The Bee Movie" wasn't making all up then? Who knew? (Probably the people who study bees. It was rhetorical.)
Next time I see a bee, I shall name him "Bob." I will not pet him though. I think that is fair.
The Bee movie was pretty spot on, lol