Beiträge zum Problem der Entfernungsweisung in den Schwänzeltänzen der Honigbiene

Summary

• 1. Dancing bees of Apis mellifica orient themselves either geotactically or phototactically (v. Frisch 1946, 1948). Phototactic orientation takes precedence over geotactic orientation when the sun's rays are reflected with a 20 by 30 cm sized mirror so that they enter the hive from underneath.

• 2. With appropriate experiments requiring alternating geotactic and phototactic orientation, it is possible to force the dancers to perform the appropriate tail-wagging portion of the dance indicating the flying distance to the feeding place more quickly than normal bees are able to do. These more quickly repeated tailwagging runs induce the hive bees to fly out. Whether or not these novices received information about the correct distance to the feeding place cannot be concluded from the experiments available at this time.

• 3. Disoriented dances in a horizontally placed hive give the proper tail-wagging run for given feeding-place-distances up to 600 meters. However when the distance to the feeding place is further increased, the length of the tail-wagging runs deviates (decreases) from those of normal dances. On the average, the tail-wagging runs for all distances are more quickly repeated than they are in normal dances.

• 4. When the fluctuation of daytime temperature during a few experimental days was compared with the single parts of the dance which are measured in time, it was not possible — in a range of 16 to 32°C— to determine any change in these separate parts of the dance in correlation with the temperature.

• 5. The novices that run after the dancing bees can stop the dancers by eliciting a “Piep-Laut” (humming tone). An artificial dancer model which has already been accepted is attacked if it doesn't stop moving during the “humming tone”. It is saved if it stops moving before being seized. If a tape recorder can produce this “humming sound” with sufficiently high volume in the hive, all the bees stand still during the emission of the “humming tone”. The “humming sound” is probably perceived through the vibration sense of the bees.