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Communication Between Honeybees: More than Just a Dance in the Dark
Jürgen Tautz, renowned German bee researcher explains how bees communicate. Exciting and surprising new insights on communication between bees.
During the history of bee research, scientists have peered deep into the inner life of bee colonies and learned much about the behaviour of these insects. Above all, the bee waggle dance has become a famous and extensively discussed phenomenon. Nevertheless, recent insights reveal that while bees are social insects inside the hive they also communicate with one another outside the hive. In this book, Jürgen Tautz, renowned German bee researcher, provides an entertaining, fresh and enlightened account for lay and professional readers, not only about the fascinating dance language but also about additional remarkable phenomena concerning information exchange between bees.
From the author of the bestseller “The Buzz about Bees”.
“The Language of Bees” assembles, for the first time, a complete overview of how bees understand one another. Although communication biology research on bees has so far concentrated largely on events within the hive, this book directs attention as well, to how bees communicate in the field outside the hive. The reader learns which steps new bee recruits take to reach the feeder a dancing forager has advertised. The book analyses the status of work on the bee dance published over the last 100 years and orders the essential findings as building blocks into a coherent new concept of how bees find their target. In addition, the historical survey of research on the “Bee Language” explains how several contradictory and incomplete hypotheses can still survive.
A fresh point of view on one of the most remarkable behavioural performances in the animal kingdom.
Observation from a different viewpoint leads to previously unknown insights. Such new perspectives clearly reveal both how large the gaps in our knowledge still are inrelation to the language of bees and in which direction research must take to complete the picture of one of the most impressive behavioural accomplishments in animals.
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Tautz is an expert on bees, sociobiologist, animal behaviourist and emeritus professor at the Biozentrum, University of Würzburg. He is a bestseller author and recipient of many awards of excellence for his successful communication of science to a wide public.
During the history of bee research, scientists have peered deep into the inner life of bee colonies and learned much about the behaviour of these insects. Above all, the bee waggle dance has become a famous and extensively discussed phenomenon. Nevertheless, recent insights reveal that while bees are social insects inside the hive they also communicate with one another outside the hive. In this book, Jürgen Tautz, renowned German bee researcher, provides an entertaining, fresh and enlightened account for lay and professional readers, not only about the fascinating dance language but also about additional remarkable phenomena concerning information exchange between bees.
From the author of the bestseller “The Buzz about Bees”.
“The Language of Bees” assembles, for the first time, a complete overview of how bees understand one another. Although communication biology research on bees has so far concentrated largely on events within the hive, this book directs attention as well, to how bees communicate in the field outside the hive. The reader learns which steps new bee recruits take to reach the feeder a dancing forager has advertised. The book analyses the status of work on the bee dance published over the last 100 years and orders the essential findings as building blocks into a coherent new concept of how bees find their target. In addition, the historical survey of research on the “Bee Language” explains how several contradictory and incomplete hypotheses can still survive.
A fresh point of view on one of the most remarkable behavioural performances in the animal kingdom.
Observation from a different viewpoint leads to previously unknown insights. Such new perspectives clearly reveal both how large the gaps in our knowledge still are inrelation to the language of bees and in which direction research must take to complete the picture of one of the most impressive behavioural accomplishments in animals.
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Tautz is an expert on bees, sociobiologist, animal behaviourist and emeritus professor at the Biozentrum, University of Würzburg. He is a bestseller author and recipient of many awards of excellence for his successful communication of science to a wide public.
280 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 27, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 19, 2022
Quite a few fun insights, but repetitive to its detriment. Very detailed description of the various methods of communication employed by bees to share the location of flowers. In a nutshell, bees dance to share the general area, and are believed to use pheromones for precise location. Worth the read for a serious bee aficionado; for others Jürgen's, "The Buzz About Bees," is much more enjoyable.
June 23, 2025
I must admit that when I started reading the book I thought to myself “is there really much more to write about the waggle dance – don’t we know quite well how bees communicate?”. But I was soon drawn into the topic of the book, and realised (not for the first time) that there is still so much more to learn about these fascinating creatures, the honeybees.
Tautz describes the research by von Frisch and others, but early on points out that there seems to be a gap in the research between what goes on in the hive and what happens at the goal, the source of food that is the goal for the bees. He calls this the “blind spot”, and explain that most of the research on the waggle dance show that the dance is not accurate enough, and doesn’t contain enough information for a bee who looks at the dancer to know or understand exactly where the food source is. Tautz thinks that there must be three phases in the process of finding the source indicated by the dancing bee. The first phase is the Send phase, where the dance information inspires a bee to fly out of the hive. The second phase is the Search phase, when this bee (and other followers of the dance) go to the area indicated by the dancing bee, and search for more clues to where the actual food source is. The third phase is the Attract phase, where signals at or close to the source leads the bees to the final goal. While the first and the last phase is pretty well researched, Tautz encourage fellow bee researchers to find out more about what actually happens in the second phase. But this is the most difficult phase to conduct research on, since it takes place between the hive and the food source.
The waggle dance isn’t particularly precise, in fact the information can be compared to what can be contained by 3 bits of data. The waggle dance only gives a sector of about 45° and a rough estimate of the distance. Later in the book Tautz compares to how scout bees communicates the exact location of a new nest site for a swarm. The waggle dance is basically the same as when describing a food source, but there is much more interaction going on in order to lead the whole swarm to the new site. Tautz believes that several of the ways scout bees communicate the location of the new site is also used in tandem with the waggle dance, and/or complement it when describing a good source of food. He repeatedly urge fellow bee scientists to research this more in the future.
This book will most likely cause some controversy amongst bee scientists, and it’s too early to regard Professor Tautz findings as facts. It will be interesting to see if his theory of a 3 phase process of communication will replace the dominant view at the moment that the waggle dance alone provides all the information needed for a bee, a “follower” (or “recruit”), to find a good food source. If it does, it certainly will be a big step forward in our understanding of how bees communicate.
Tautz describes the research by von Frisch and others, but early on points out that there seems to be a gap in the research between what goes on in the hive and what happens at the goal, the source of food that is the goal for the bees. He calls this the “blind spot”, and explain that most of the research on the waggle dance show that the dance is not accurate enough, and doesn’t contain enough information for a bee who looks at the dancer to know or understand exactly where the food source is. Tautz thinks that there must be three phases in the process of finding the source indicated by the dancing bee. The first phase is the Send phase, where the dance information inspires a bee to fly out of the hive. The second phase is the Search phase, when this bee (and other followers of the dance) go to the area indicated by the dancing bee, and search for more clues to where the actual food source is. The third phase is the Attract phase, where signals at or close to the source leads the bees to the final goal. While the first and the last phase is pretty well researched, Tautz encourage fellow bee researchers to find out more about what actually happens in the second phase. But this is the most difficult phase to conduct research on, since it takes place between the hive and the food source.
The waggle dance isn’t particularly precise, in fact the information can be compared to what can be contained by 3 bits of data. The waggle dance only gives a sector of about 45° and a rough estimate of the distance. Later in the book Tautz compares to how scout bees communicates the exact location of a new nest site for a swarm. The waggle dance is basically the same as when describing a food source, but there is much more interaction going on in order to lead the whole swarm to the new site. Tautz believes that several of the ways scout bees communicate the location of the new site is also used in tandem with the waggle dance, and/or complement it when describing a good source of food. He repeatedly urge fellow bee scientists to research this more in the future.
This book will most likely cause some controversy amongst bee scientists, and it’s too early to regard Professor Tautz findings as facts. It will be interesting to see if his theory of a 3 phase process of communication will replace the dominant view at the moment that the waggle dance alone provides all the information needed for a bee, a “follower” (or “recruit”), to find a good food source. If it does, it certainly will be a big step forward in our understanding of how bees communicate.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews