"Bob's over by the entrance. He's sweaty and agitated. He's furiously pointing to a place in the field near our home."

What would any social creature do?

"Nah, I checked that place out 20 minutes ago... there are no flowers. It's not a real place at all!"

I mean, given how little study bee dance language has gotten, if there's another unknown word and was only performed once a year by a typical hive, no one would have ever seen it. And their vocabulary isn't taught, it's instinctive, so low frequency usage wouldn't be an impediment to transmission.

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themafia 4 days ago | parent [-]

What communication occurs to draw bees to the location of a fallen hive member? They seem to do that without the dance at all. So there's clearly multiple communications layers. I'm assuming that those layers work in concert to convey more complex ideas.

It's not just the finger pointing, it's the look on his face, and the smell of his sweat.

	▲	NoMoreNicksLeft 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		>What communication occurs to draw bees to the location of a fallen hive member? Pheromones. Some people claim to be able to smell those themselves, some of them at least.