A tremble dance is a dance performed by forager honey bees of the species Apis mellifera to recruit more receiver honey bees to collect nectar from the workers.

History of discovery

The tremble dance was first described by Karl von Frisch in the 1920s (who was also first to describe the waggle dance), but no light was shed on its function until 1993 when Wolfgang Kirschner discovered that, when performed, the dance stopped nearby workers from flying to gather more nectar.

Function

The tremble dance of the honeybee is used by a forager when it perceives a long delay in unloading its nectar or a shortage of receiver bees, indicating a need to switch worker allocation from foragers to receivers. It may also spread the scent released during the forager's waggle dance. The waggle and tremble dances are likely the two "primary regulation mechanisms" for controlling group behavior in the bee colony, and one of four or five observed mechanisms known to be used by honeybees to change the task allocation among worker bees.

Linkage to ethanol consumption

The consumption of ethanol by foraging bees has been shown to increase the occurrence of the tremble dance while decreasing the occurrence of the waggle dance.

Sources and further reading