Can Bees Really Communicate With Each Other?

Can bees really communicate with each other?

Bees that live in large colonies are very social creatures and it was realised some years ago that they have advanced forms of communication.

Worker honey bees communicate information about food sources to their nest mates using a dancing and wiggling technique. If the food source is 40 degrees to the left of the sun, the incoming bee shows this to its fellow nest mates by performing a tail aging run across a figure of eight dance, at the angle of exactly 40 degrees.

The number of times the bee wags its body tells the other bees just how far away the food source is, so that bees inside the nest can then leave and fly to the food source straight away.

This ability was discovered by researchers who spent many long hours watching how bees behaved in their colonies and working out their bee language.