The Dance of the Honeybee
(1) When a honeybee finds a field of flowers full of nectar, it does not keep the discovery to itself. (2) It flies back to the hive and performs a special movement called the waggle dance. (3) The dance tells other bees where to find the food. (4) In the 1940s, an Austrian scientist named Karl von Frisch began to decode the waggle dance.
(5) During the dance, the bee runs in a straight line while shaking its body from side to side. (6) It circles back and repeats the run, again and again. (7) The direction of the straight run shows where the food is compared to the position of the sun. (8) The length of the waggle run shows how far away the flowers is. (9) A longer run means a longer trip.
(10) Honey has been found in ancient Egyptian tombs. (11) Von Frisch tested his ideas by placing dishes of sugar water at different distances from hives. (12) He watched the bees return and dance, and then he observed where the other bees flew. (13) His careful experiments showed that the dance contained real information. (14) In 1973, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work.