A forager bee that finds food performs a waggle dance on the vertical comb: the angle of the waggle run relative to straight-up encodes the direction to the food relative to the sun, and the run's duration encodes distance.
bearing = angle_from_vertical (relative to sun azimuth)
distance ≈ k × waggle_duration (~75 ms/100 m in real bees)
- Dance angle — angle of the waggle run on the comb, translated outside the hive into a compass bearing to the food source marker.
- Dance duration — length of each waggle run; longer runs signal a farther food source.
- Hive population — number of bees in the cross-section; more idle bees means more potential recruits watching the dance.
Watch the highlighted dancer trace a figure-8 with a waggle run in the middle — the yellow line projected outside the hive shows the bearing and distance nearby bees will fly to reach the food source.