THE SILENT DANCES OF THE HIMALAYAN HONEYBEE, APIS LABORIOSA

Comparative studies of the mechanisms of information transfer in the d ance language of honeybees have recently led to an evolutionary scenar io, assuming that acoustic signals replace visual communication signal s in species that are forced to communicate in the dark, either becaus e of nesting in dark cavities like Apis mellifera and Apis cerana or b ecause of nocturnal activity like Apis dorsata. To test this idea, the dance language of the giant honeybee Apis laboriosa, which is closely related to Apis dorsata, but exclusively diurnal, was studied. We obs erved the dances, determined the flight range and recorded and analyze d acoustic signals emitted by worker bees. The dances of this species do not contain any acoustic signals, indicating that acoustic signalli ng of the location of food sources is indeed restricted to species whi ch need to dance under low light intensities. The evolutionary implica tions are discussed.