Which insect communicates food locations with a waggle dance?

The honeybee communicates food locations with a waggle dance. A successful worker performs a repeated figure-eight pattern inside the hive, using the direction and duration of its waggle run to indicate where food can be found.

The dance is especially associated with the western honeybee, Apis mellifera, although related honeybee species also use similar behavior. The dancer’s angle on the vertical comb represents the direction of the resource relative to the sun, while the length of the waggle phase roughly conveys distance. Bees can also advertise water and possible nest sites.

A common mix-up is confusing the waggle dance with the round dance. The round dance generally signals nearby food, while the waggle dance is used for more distant resources, with a gradual transition between the two. Austrian zoologist Karl von Frisch was among the first scientists to decode this communication system, helping establish that honeybee dances carry spatial information rather than being meaningless excitement.