Tactics of dance choice in honey bees: do foragers compare dances?

摘要: (1) When a honey bee follows recruitment dances to locate new food source, does she sample multiple representing different sources and selectively respond the strongest dance? (2) Several initial findings suggested that foragers might indeed compare dances. First, dance information is arrayed in hive way facilitates comparison-making: for flower patches are performed close together time space. Second, food-source quality coded dances, terms of length (number circuits per dance). Third, natural vary by more than 2 orders magnitude, indicating varies greatly. Fourth, seeking source follow several before exiting (though only one followed closely). (3) Nevertheless, critical test comparison-making revealed evidently do not A colony was given two feeders were equidistant from but profitability. If then proportion recruits arriving at richer feeder should match feeder. This pattern we found all 11 trials experiment. (4) We suggest reason colony's foraging success greater if its distribute themselves among various being advertised they crowd on one, best source. (5) Food-source selection colonies democratic decision-making process. study reveals this process organized function effectively even though each member democracy possesses incomplete about available choices.