Freiburg Researchers Find Bees Repeat 255 Flight Paths Within Centimeters Using Landmarks
Updated
Updated · ScienceDaily · Jun 15
Freiburg Researchers Find Bees Repeat 255 Flight Paths Within Centimeters Using Landmarks
2 articles · Updated · ScienceDaily · Jun 15
Summary
Researchers at the University of Freiburg tracked 255 honey-bee flights and found individual bees repeatedly followed their own routes with centimeter-level precision on trips to and from a food source.
A drone-based Fast Lock-On system made the measurements possible, following marked bees in milliseconds as they flew about 120 meters between hive and feeder in an agricultural landscape near Kaiserstuhl, Germany.
The most stable paths clustered around distinct landmarks—especially a tree—while flights over a visually uniform cornfield varied more, indicating bees use landscape cues to stay on course.
The findings also challenge a simple reading of the waggle dance: although dance directions for food roughly 100 meters away can be off by about 30 degrees, familiar-route flights deviated by only a few degrees.