dance of the bees

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dance of the bees A celebrated example of communication in animals, first investigated by Karl von Frisch (1886–1982). Honeybee workers on returning to the hive after a successful foraging expedition perform a `dance' on the comb that contains coded information about the distance and direction of the food source. For example the waggle dance, characterized by tail-wagging movements, indicates the direction of a food source at a distance of more than 100 m. Other workers, sensing vibrations from the dance, follow the instructions to find the food source.