Question

On a summer morning at 6 am, a honey bee located a nectar source in the same direction as the rising sun. It went back to the hive and performed a waggle dance which lasted for several hours. What will be the direction of the waggle dance at 6 pm?

Answer 1

Hint: A honey bee performs a waggle dance in order to tell the other bees of the hive where the direction of the nectar source is. The waggle dance is also used to communicate the distance of the source.

Complete Answer:
When a bee performs a waggle dance it uses the directions of vertically upwards and downwards to tell where the source of nectar (flower) is present. If a bee is dancing vertically upwards it means that the source of nectar is in the direction of the sun. But at 6 pm, the sun is in the opposite direction to this source as it is setting in the West. So, the honey bee will perform the waggle dance vertically downwards to indicate that the nectar source is in the opposite direction of the sun. It is also said that the waggle dance lasted for several hours which is an indication that the nectar source is very far away.

Additional information:
Let us look at the process of waggle dance in detail.
When a worker bee finds a good source of nectar such as a flower patch, it returns back to the hive to inform the other bees about its whereabouts. The way of communication between bees is through a waggle dance. A waggle dance conveys two crucial things about the nectar source.
1)Direction: Bees use a specific angle made with the sun to tell the direction of the flower patch. This angle keeps changing as the Sun keeps moving from East to West throughout the day.
2)Distance: A waggle dance consists of a bee moving back and forth in a straight line and circling back to repeat the dance. The length of the midline from which it circles back tells the magnitude of the distance of the flower patch from the hive.

Note:
-Karl von Frisch was the first scientist to translate the meaning of the waggle dance.
-A waggle dance consists of two phases known as the waggle phase and the return phase.
-Another dance known as the round dance is performed along with the waggle dance as part of continuous dance behavior.