UC San Diego

Waggle-dancing honeybees produce vibratory movements that may facilitate communication by indicating the location of the waggle dancer. However, an important component of these vibrations has never been previously detected in the comb. We developed a method of fine-scale behavioural analysis that allowed us to analyze separately comb vibrations near a honeybee waggle dancer during the waggle and return phases of her dance. We simultaneously recorded honeybee waggle dances using digital video and laser-Doppler vibrometry, and performed a behaviour-locked Fast Fourier Transform analysis on the substratum vibrations. This analysis revealed significantly higher-amplitude 200-300 Hz vibrations during the waggle phase than during the return phase (P = 0.012). We found no significant differences in the flanking frequency regions between 100-200 Hz (P = 0.227) and 300-400 Hz (P = 0.065). We recorded peak waggle phase vibrations from 206 to 292 Hz (244 ± 28 Hz; mean ± S.D., N = 11). The maximum measured signal noise level was +12.4 dB during the waggle phase (mean +5.8 ± 2.7 dB). The maximum vibrational velocity, calculated from a filtered signal, was 128 μm s-1 peak-to-peak, corresponding to a displacement of 0.09 μm peak-to-peak at 223 Hz. On average, we measured a vibrational velocity of 79 ± 28 μms-1 peak-to-peak from filtered signals. These signal amplitudes overlap with the detection threshold of the honeybee subgenual organ.