Bees need dance instructors to teach them to ‘twerk’ properly

HONEY bees learn to ‘twerk’ and, much like humans, need a dance teacher to help them get it right, a study has found.

Researchers found that dancing is a learned behaviour by watching 2,800 female honey bees do their first ‘waggle dance’ having never seen one before.

The dance, which signals to other bees where to find food, was terrible compared to those who had watched others in their colony with more experience perform.

The ‘waggle’, where they vigorously shake their behind for a set amount of time to indicate how far away food is, lasted about 0.15 seconds longer than it should have. The bees should also have pointed their head at a specific angle away from the Sun to show the direction of the food, but they pointed it in various directions which were up to 40 degrees apart.

The US study, published in the journal Science, found bees refine and improve the dance by 20 days of age.