How Do Bees Communicate the Direction of Flowers?

When a bee finds a huge patch of flowers, she runs back to the hive and starts dancing on the honeycomb. This special move is called the waggle dance. It looks like she is doing figure eights while wiggling her bottom half.

The dance tells two things: where to go and how far. If she faces straight up during the wiggle, it means fly toward the sun. If she angles her body to the left or right, that angle matches the direction of the flowers relative to the sun. The harder she waggles, the farther away the food is.

The speed of her dance changes with distance. A fast dance means the flowers are close by, like around the corner. A slow, long wiggle means they are far away, across the park. Other bees watch closely and then fly off to find the flower patch using these clues.