Lesson 5

• What was the aim of Von frisch's study?

  To carefully describe the Dancers performed by bees and explain how these enabled bees to communicate information to each other
• Why were the bees kept in a glass hive?

  So that they could be observed and their movements could be
• What was applied to the bees when they fed from containers of sugar water in different locations and why?

  A tiny dot of paint marks then so that they could be identified when they return to the hive
• What did the different movements the bees made when they returned to the hive depend on?

  How far away from the Hive the container of sugar water was
• When it was less than 100 meters from the Hive how did the bees dance/move?

  The beers turned rapidly in circles to the right and then the left(a round dance)
• When the sugar water was fathered than 100 meters away how did the bees dance?

  The beers move forward in a straight line, wagging their abdomen from side to side before returning in a circle towards the left comma followed by The Bees moving straightforward again before turning in a circle towards the right (waggle dance)
• What percentage of bees who saw the dances went to the food source at the distance indicated?

  60%, suggesting they had understood the message
• What did von frisch conclude?

  That bees use movements to communicate to each other about the whereabouts of food sources
• What did von frisch's bee study demonstrate?

  The complexity of animal communication
• Why May the study lack ecological validity? What contrast this point?

  Bees do not collect sugar water from glass containers every day, so this is not a test of natural behaviour. However when sugar solution was put on flowers instead of in glass containers the bees still behaved in the same way
• What may have changed the bees natural behaviour? How is this view contrasted?

  Beehives are not usually glass however when research has been done using wooden hives and a video camera the same results have been found
• Why may Von Frisch's conclusions be too simplistic?

  Researchers has also found that the noise bees make while doing the dance is is important and have also suggested that these use cognitive Maps, based on their memory of landmarks, to find food
• What suggests that his results are trustworthy and that his study is reliable?

  Other researchers have replicated his study and found the same results