GENIC CONTROL OF HONEY-BEE DANCE LANGUAGE DIALECT

Behavioural genetic analysis of honey bee dance language shows simple Mendelian genic control over certain dance dialect differences. Worker honey bees of one parent colony (yellow) changed from round to transi tion dances for foraging distances of 20 m and from transition to wagg le dances at 40 m. Worker bees of the other parent colony (black) made these shifts at 30 m and 90 m, respectively. F-1 colonies behaved ide ntically to their yellow parent, suggesting dominance. Progeny of back crossing between the F-1 generation and the putative recessive black p arent assorted to four classes, indicating that the dialect difference s studied are regulated by genes at two unlinked loci, each having two alleles. Honey bee dance communication is complex and highly integrat ed behaviour. Nonetheless, analysis of a small element of this behavio ur, variation in response to distance, suggests that dance communicati on is regulated by subsets consisting of simple genic systems.