Much has been made about the waggle dance that foraging honeybees do to tell their hive mates when they have found a good food source. The dance - a zigzagging figure eight maneuver performed in the hive - provides cues as to the direction and distance of the trove of flowers so the other bees can locate it.
There is only one problem: Many bees seem to ignore the information. Instead, researchers in Argentina have found, the bees rely on their own memories of where to find food.
In addition to its waggle moves, a dancing bee carries the odor of the flowers it visited. And flower scents have a known effect on bees: if the insects haven’t been foraging for a few days, the scent spurs them to resume, often at a food source they have visited before.
So the question for Walter M. Farina of the University of Buenos Aires, and his colleagues , was what happens when the dance creates a conflict: The dancer provides information about a new location, but the flower odor reminds the watching bees about food that they remember is at another location.
The researchers found that in almost every case, the bees went to the familiar source. And, the researchers found, even if the scent was unfamiliar the dance only spurred the bees to return to a familiar source, not a new one.


HENRY FOUNTAIN