สำนักราชบัณฑิตยสภา

The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand §«“¡À≈“°À≈“¬¢Õß¿“…“º÷È ß Vol. 32 No. 4 Oct.-Dec. 2007 814 Abstract The Diversity of Bee Languages Siriwat Wongsiri Associate Fellow of the Academy of Science, The Royal Institute, Thailand Sureerat Deowanish Tipwan Suppasat Center of Excellence in Biodiversity (CEB) The dance ù language û of the honey bee was an important evolutionary step , allowing tropical species to efficiently exploit resources in a tropical forest. During the dance the dancing bee strides forward vigorously shaking her abdomen and , in the A. dorsata and the cavity-nesting bee only , vibrating her wings. The duration of this ù waggle run û of the dance is correlated with the distance to the goal , which can be estimated the typical foraging ranges of a species. The direction of the food goal is encoded in the angle of the waggle run relative to the current position of the sun. A. florea dances on the horizontal plane of the crown of the nest. Her run points directly at the food source and is aligned using the sun û s azimuth as a navigation point. In the giant bees and the cavity-nesting bees the dance has been transformed to the vertical plane such that angle of the angle of the waggle run from the perpendicular indicates the angle of the flight direction from the sun û s current azimuth. Dance of these species are accompanies by sound that helps bees that follow the dancer in the dark. Key words : bee language , bee dance , diversity