Honeybees Navigate Using Mental Maps

Study with new findings on the waggle dance of honeybees published under the leadership of zoologist and neurobiologist Professor Randolf Menzel of Freie Universität Berlin. According to a recent study, honeybees have a map-like spatial memory of their territory and are able to fly from their starting location to any destination encoded in a waggle dance. These new findings, which offer a radically new perspective on the spatial information contained in the honeybee waggle dance, were published by a research team led by the acclaimed zoologist and neurobiologist at Freie Universität Berlin, Professor Randolf Menzel. It was previously assumed that bees were able to accurately navigate only from their hive to their chosen targets. The study, "Honey Bees Infer Source Location from the Dances of Returning Foragers," was recently published in the international scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS): https://www.pnas.org/eprint/RUDKWR7KYHM2Z87SMKWI/full "Bees are able to store the geometric relations between landmarks in their memory and interpret the vector information in the waggle dance so that they can fly from any location within their foraging territory to the location conveyed in the dance," says Menzel. The new study shows that the dance language of honeybees is much richer and more elaborate than previously thought. The findings also indicate that just like humans, honeybees possess a cognitive map based on geometric information that allows them to navigate from point A to point B within a familiar environment.