IPAB Workshop-09/05/2024

Speaker: Anna Hadjitofi

Title: A model and a test of honeybee dance recruit accuracy 

Abstract: In the waggle dance, a forager communicates the location of valuable resources to nestmates within the hive in the form of a flight vector. Although it has been widely studied, it has remained unclear how nestmates assimilate the information needed to navigate towards the resource. Nestmates following the dance (followers) are required to detect the dancer's orientation relative to gravity and duration of the waggle phase and translate this into their own flight vector with a direction relative to the sun and distance from the hive. In a recent publication [1], we reported a previously unremarked correlation between antennal position and the relative body axes of dancer and follower bees. Based on this, we proposed a plausible neural mechanism that enables followers to assimilate a flight vector that they can follow to the resource. Using real data from tracked dance followers in our model, we obtain appropriately centred but widely distributed estimates of the vector direction. In my talk, I will discuss a behavioural experiment we conducted to follow up this result. We devised an experiment to compare the predictions of this model with vectors expressed by real bees recruited to a feeder, as well as experienced foragers returning to a feeder, inspired by the enforced-detour paradigm in ants. Bees were trained to forage from a tunnel at an angle from the hive, and their dances and interactions with nestmates were filmed upon returning to the hive. As a forager or a new recruit began its journey to the feeder, they were caught and forced to fly along a detour tunnel. The angle of the bee’s trajectory immediately post-detour was tracked, allowing us to analyse the accuracy of their estimate of the food location from the correction made for the detour. Similar to predictions of the model, we observed a characteristic spread of flight directions centred on the feeder.