Comparison of two methods for decoding honeybee waggle dances

Honeybees communicate the locations of profitable resources using waggle dances. Researchers have used two manual dance decoding methods to infer the spatial foraging patterns of the bees. The ‘waggle run method’ infers foraging distance from waggle duration, representing the actual distance signal of the bees, and the ‘circuit method’ infers foraging distance from the duration of complete dance circuits, including both waggle and return phases. The circuit method enables decoding dances by real-time observation and is likely quicker, but it might give inaccurate distance estimates due to variations in the return phases. Here, we decoded 200 natural waggle dances from four Apis mellifera colonies using both methods to test how well inferences about foraging locations would match and compared the time required for dance decoding. We found a high linear correlation between foraging distances inferred from waggle duration and circuit duration (R², 0.793). However, the circuit method systematically overestimated foraging distances by about 86 m. Both methods provided similar results with respect to relative differences in spatial foraging patterns between the four test colonies. Decoding the dances using the circuit method was three to four times faster than the waggle run method (2 versus 7.3 min per dance). We conclude that the circuit method can be used for many research questions that require manual dance decoding to minimize time costs. However, when aiming to maximize the accuracy of inferred foraging locations, systematic errors of the circuit method should be accounted for, or the waggle run method should be used.