A scout bee returns to the hive and dances a figure-eight on the comb. The angle of the straight "waggle run" (relative to the direction of the sun) encodes the food's bearing; the run's duration encodes its distance.
How it works ▾The gold arrow marks the direction to the sun; the pink arrow marks the direction to the flower. The wedge between them is the dance angle. Longer waggle runs mean a farther source — a real, roughly linear relationship discovered by Karl von Frisch.
🌼 Drag the flower to relocate the food source — the dance recalculates instantly and watcher bees decode the new angle & distance.