Does plastic comb foundation hinder waggle dance communication?

Thomas D. Seeley , Adrian M. Reich , Jürgen Tautz

In recent years, plastic comb foundation has become widely used by beekeepers but it has not been studied to see if it hinders recruitment communication by reducing the transmission of the comb vibrations produced by bees performing waggle dances. We used laser vibrometry to compare combs built with beeswax foundation vs. plastic foundation in terms of transmission of dance vibrations. We also used behavioral experiments to compare the recruitment effectiveness of dances performed on combs built with beeswax foundation vs. plastic foundation. We found that combs built with plastic foundation are markedly poorer at transmitting the 250 Hz vibrations produced by dancing bees. Nevertheless, we found no evidence of reduced effectiveness of dances performed on combs built with plastic foundation vs. combs built with beeswax foundation. Evidently, a comb built with plastic foundation provides a fully suitable substrate for waggle dance communication.

Mots clés: Apis mellifera; comb vibration; plastic foundation; recruitment communication; waggle dance

Domaines: Zoologie des invertébrés; Biodiversité; Ecologie, Environnement; Science des productions animales

Thomas D. Seeley, Adrian M. Reich, Jürgen Tautz. Does plastic comb foundation hinder waggle dance communication?. Apidologie, 2005, 36 (4), pp.513-521. ⟨hal-00892160⟩