Honey bees perfect their waggle dances by learning from elders

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The waggle dance performed by honey bees is a complex behavior that communicates directional information. In a recent paper, researchers demonstrated that younger bees learn critical parts of this dance from older, more experienced bees. Bees that learn without the benefit of teachers have errors in their dance, and while some of which can improve with practice, errors relating to distance encoding remain for their entire lives. Bees, like many other social animals, appear to benefit from social learning.

[@TheStageClear]

I wonder if different bee colonies have different dialects so to speak and measure distance diffentely. They said the experemtals always overshot, if it's consistent maybe it's a different definition of wiggle to length

[@roidroid]

Yea I was thinking same thing. It seems like they all just use a consensus UNIT of distance measurement, and if there's no-one to learn it from then they'll just make their own new one.
But it is interesting that all new groups independently used short units (requiring a longer dance) 🤔. Why would this be.

[@ulaB]

@@roidroid Perhaps it's better to overshoot than to communicate a too short distance?

[@wmarclocher]

I guess when your lifespan is only 30 days, you are better off following passed down traditions from elders than finding new ways of doing them

[@ebonypegasus9864]

they are so cute

[@theorauch8273]

huge fan of what you're doing, keep It up

[@GunariPike]

Incredible!

[@anjezx1454]

so it seems wholesome nature (of bees) thrives best on harmony of young and old bees and this over a long period of time, as much as possible knowledge gained undisturbed by multiple generations of bees 🤔

[@footfault1941]

Karl von Frisch would be delighted with this!
By the way, in nature or even inside the hive it'd be very dark. Can they see the dance really? They dance where they can be seen alternatively.

[@KrausHyperOpera]

I may be misremembering, but from what I've read I believe that they have to feel the dance.

[@footfault1941]

@@KrausHyperOpera more likely. Vibration, noise (buzzing) & duration may be cues. Thanks for your hint.

[@biltre271]

So you can do the bug shaker, huh?

[@inukshuksixtyfour1164]

🧡🖤🌼🌼🌼🖤🧡