The Honeybee's Dance

After returning to the hive, a scout bee may perform a figure-eight waggle dance. On vertical combs, the angle of the waggle run relative to vertical encodes the food source’s direction relative to the Sun’s azimuth; the duration of the waggle run roughly conveys distance. Bees compensate for the Sun’s apparent movement across the sky during the day and can also use polarized skylight. It is a useful navigation signal, not perfectly precise coordinates.