Imagine at this moment that you are a honey bee. As a bee, you have been out in the far meadows, foraging for blossoms rich in nectar. Now you have found a fine field of blooms, just begging to be harvested. You quickly fill yourself with the sweet nectar and hurry back to your hive.
But it would take you weeks to harvest those waiting flowers by yourself, and meanwhile the hungry hive needs nourishment. But, there are hundreds of other worker bees who want to help, if only they knew where to go. The problem is, how do you tell them how to find the distant fields?
You might , perhaps, lead them personally. But that is not the bee solution to the problem. (We do not know why, but countless observations confirm that forager bees do not use this method. It may be because the scout needs to rest before going out again.)
No, the successful hunter tells the other bees about her find (all worker bees are female) by dancing to them. In her dance she imparts knowledge of both direction and distance to the find. And, in addition, she gives them a good indication of how rich a food source she has discovered. The other bees also learn what type of flower she has sampled, by the floral perfume clinging to her. Thus they have all the information they need to begin bringing in that harvest. But it begins slowly, in practice, for at first just a few bees follow the dancer’s directions. When they return and confirm her report with their own dances, the harvest begins in earnest.
This is the dance by which she announces a distant find: she semi-circles left, then runs straight back to the starting point, after which she semi-circles right and returns again; and keeps repeating this cycle for several minutes. Each time she dances the straight line dividing the circle, she waggles her abdomen vigorously. (“The Dancing Bees,” Karl von Frisch, Harcourt, Brace & Co., NY, 1955, p.116.) Had the source been nearby – within about 100 yards – the scout would have simply danced in a circle.
Dividing the circle tells the on-lookers that the field is more distant. The line dividing the circle gives the direction to the food source, in relation to the sun; and the vigor of waggling on that line indicates the richness of the find. But there is more: the bee also indicates distance to the find by her pace – the slower and more stately her progress, the further away is the supply of nectar. (ibid, , p. 118.)
This dance normally takes place on a vertical surface inside the hive. Here, straight up is equated with the direction to the sun, and the line halving the circle is danced at the proper angle from the upright to show the angle to the food source from the sun line. The audience bees make the mental adjustment of laying the dance pattern out flat, and then know the proper flight path.
The distance indicator does not show mere ground measurement to the goal, but is more accurate and useful to the bees, in that it tells them how long it takes to reach the food source (or perhaps the amount of energy needed to fly there). Thus, for example, the dance takes account of headwinds or marked changes in elevation to be encountered. (ibid, p. 121.)
As the day progresses, the dancer makes an allowance for the changed position of the sun in the sky. The sun itself need not be visible: any patch of blue sky will suffice, for it provides polarized light, to which bees’ eyes are sensitive. This tells them where the sun is, even if they cannot see it.
It has also been learned that bees can follow directions to food sources which cannot be reached directly – a field which lies around the shoulder of a mountain, for instance. The bee dancer gives the true azimuth from hive to source, but when other scouts set out to follow this direction, they come upon the obstruction before the indicated flight time is elapsed. They therefore know they must fly around the obstacle to reach the goal.
The German bee scientist, Karl von Frisch, who discovered this capability in bees, marvels at the accomplishment. “That they are able to fly by an indirect route and yet reconstruct the true direction without aid of ruler, protractor or drawing board, is one of the most wonderful accomplishments in the life of the bee, and indeed all creation.” (ibid, pp. 124-125.)
Indeed it is marvelous. As von Frisch pointed out, the bees have no protractors nor rulers, yet they are able to work out problems which would stump many untrained humans.
How were they equipped with such communicative skills and deductive powers? It will not do to argue that their ancestors gained this lore bit by bit, across the millenia. This ability is vital to bees today, and has always been so. Without it, hives cannot long survive and prosper. Bees had to have this ability from the beginning, or we would not have bees today.
It is quite apparent that this lore was a fundamental gift to bees, just as were their social instincts, their pollen sacks, and their long tongues adapted to sucking nectar, and all the other specializations which fitted then for their role on earth. “God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the livestock after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:25)
Yes, God made the bees, and made them well; just as He created all of life, including you and me. Let us reverence Him for all His works, and give Him the glory which is His due.
(All Scripture is quoted from the World English Bible translation.)