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From WinkyPedia, the free encyclopedia that tells you what you already knew
A bee is a flying insect that feeds on nectar and pollen. When a honey bee finds a good patch of flowers, it returns to the hive and tells the other bees where it is by dancing. The so-called waggle dance gives both the direction, as an angle from the Sun, and the distance, by how long the bee waggles.[1] It is the only dance in the world that ends with everyone leaving to do the thing it described.
The bee dances on the vertical comb in the dark hive. Straight up the comb means “fly towards the Sun”; a waggle at an angle to the right of straight up means fly at that angle to the right of the Sun. A longer waggle means further away. The other bees follow along, touching the dancer, and then fly off in the right direction.[2]
Because the Sun moves across the sky during the day, bees adjust the angle of the dance over time. This makes the honey bee the only insect with a better grasp of navigation than most people with a map.
A bee has five eyes: two large compound eyes and three small simple eyes on top of its head. It can see ultraviolet light, which shows patterns on flowers that are invisible to humans. Many flowers that look plain yellow to us have landing markings for bees, like a runway that only bees have been told about.