Aristotle's Account of Bees' ‘Dances’

Abstract

Von Frisch has shown that hive bees communicate with one another by ‘dancing’, a discovery comparable with that of Ventris. Both the direction of food found and its distance are indicated with considerable precision. Aristotle (or perhaps pseudo-Aristotle) described this dance in Hist. Animal. IX, 624b. After noting that an individual bee visits a number of flowers of the same species in succession, which Darwin, von Frisch, and others have shown to be generally, but not universally, true, he continued:ὅταν δ' εἰς τὸ σμῆνος ἀφίκωνται, ἀποσείονται, και παρακολουθοῦσιν ἑκάστῃ τρεῑς ἢ τέτταρες. τὸ δὲ λαμβανόμενον οὐ ῥᾴδιόν ἐστιν ἰδεῖν̇ οὐδὲ τὴν ἐργασίαν ὅντινα τρόπον ποιοῦνται, οὐκ ὦπται.Bekker's translation, due to J. C. Sealiger, revised by J. C. Schneider, is as follows:eo cum sunt ingressae, excutiunt et deponunt onus, semper etiam singulis ternae quaternaeque administrant, quid accipiunt non facile videre est; neque visum quo operantur modo.