Bees learn from their older peers how to get a waggle on

HONEYBEES learn to dance from a young age in order to help their friends find the best food, a study has found.

The “waggle dance” is a form of complex communication they must hone in order to signal to the rest of the hive where the best nectar and pollen is.

The dance, where bees circle around in figure-eight patterns while waggling their bodies, is performed at breakneck speed. The movements translate information about food, including direction, distance, type and quality of the meal.

Scientists previously believed that the routine was innate, but have now found it is learned by watching more experienced bees. They said passing down this shared knowledge from one generation to the next is “a hallmark of culture”.

Honeybee colonies were monitored until young bees took part in their first dance. Researchers then observed the same bees 20 days later, finding their dancing was far more accurate and contained significantly fewer errors then when they made their initial attempts.

They noted that bees without the opportunity to follow any dancers produced significantly more disordered dances. The phenomenon has been compared with language development in humans, where early exposure is essential for full development. James

Nieh, a professor in the University of California San Diego’s ecology, behaviour and evolution department, which carried out the study, said: “Like us, animals can pass down information important for their survival through communities and families. Our new research shows we can now extend such social learning to include insects.”

Commenting on the US study, Lars Chittka, professor of sensory and behavioural ecology at Queen Mary University of London, said: “The waggle dance was

‘They can pass down information important for their survival through communities and families’

previously dismissed as ‘just innate’ and therefore, in many people’s understanding, less impressive. The discovery that... this behaviour must be learnt opens up a wholly new perspective.”

The finding comes as scientists at the London university found that another bee species, the bumblebee, learns to solve puzzles by watching its peers.

Queen Mary researchers trained a set of honeybees to open a puzzle box containing a sugar reward. The bees then passed the knowledge on to others in their colonies.