In honeybees, employed foragers recruit unemployed hive mates to food sourc
es by dances from which a human observer can read the distance and directio
n of the food source(1). When foragers collect food in a short, narrow tunn
el, they dance as if the food source were much farther away. Dancers gauge
distance by retinal image flow on the way to their destination. Their visua
lly driven odometer misreads distance because the close tunnel walls increa
se optic flow(2). We examined how hive mates interpret these dances. Here w
e show that recruited bees search outside in the direction of the tunnel at
exaggerated distances and not inside the tunnel where the foragers come fr
om. Thus, dances must convey information about the direction of the food so
urce and the total amount of image motion en route to the food source, but
they do not convey information about absolute distances. We also found that
perceived distances on various outdoor routes from the same hive could be
considerably different. Navigational errors are avoided as recruits and dan
cers tend to fly in the same direction. Reported racial differences in hone
ybee dances(1) could have arisen merely from differences in the environment
s in which these bees flew.