Bee Beep

Ever since Aristotle, scientists have been fascinated by the complex society of the bee. They have studied its remarkable technology, reported on its rigid hierarchy; they have pried out the secret code of dances with which bees communicate. Now, quite by accident, they have discovered that the hardworking, gregarious insects actually talk to each other too.

Zoologist Harald Esch of the University of Munich stumbled on the information while performing an elaborate experiment on bee dances. Prompted by curiosity, he poked a small microphone into the hive while a scout was making her dancing report. "I got the surprise of my life," he says. "Blasting out of the earphones came a loud 'thththrrrr.' followed by a short 'beep.' Then some of the worker bees flew out of the hive. I knew I had hit on something entirely new.''

Stirring Up the Workers. A little more observation showed that the whirring sounds were made by the scout bee just as she went into a tail-wagging dance, but two years of work were needed to translate the meaning of the new code of sound. Dr. Esch finally decided that the length of the sounds reported the distance to the nectar supply. The pitch of the sounds and the intervals between them told its quality and quantity. Made with slight nonflying movements of wings, the sounds seemed to stimulate the watching workers to fly toward the new-found food.

When he thought he knew enough about the bees' talking dance. Dr. Esch rigged up an artificial bee and stuck it in a hive to repeat a dance that had been performed by a live scout bee. At the proper moment, a tiny loudspeaker emitted the proper recorded sounds. A ring of workers followed the performance with apparent interest, and Dr. Esch hoped that they would fly out of the hive to find the nectar described by the simulated scout.

Murdered Dummy. The workers did no such thing. After listening for a few seconds, one of them rushed over and furiously stabbed the dummy scout with her sting. Smelling the deathly odor of venom, the other bees withdrew. This ritual murder was repeated many times. Something was obviously wrong.

A little more research showed the cause of the stabbings. Dr. Esch had neglected the short, chirping beeps that sometimes followed the scout's drumming sounds. They are apparently made by one of the watching workers, and they mean "message understood." When the scout hears the beep, she is supposed to stop dancing so that the worker can come close to her and smell the odor of the nectar that she has found. Dr. Esch's artificial scout went right on dancing after the beep was sounded. This made the workers so suspicious that one of them stabbed her. When Dr. Esch learned to stop the dummy's dance after the first beep, the artificial bee was not stabbed.

Vast new vistas of research have now opened up, says Dr. Esch. Since bees have no ears, do they hear with their antennae or organs under their abdomens? And do all species talk the same language? "The entire field,'' says the zoologist, "is pregnant with new discoveries."

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