BRIGHTON, England, April 18 (UPI) -- Honeybees' "waggle dance" used to give others in a hive directions to flowers contains more errors when done on a horizontal surface, British researchers say.

Forager bees locate flower resources then return to the hive to perform a detailed dance made up of "waggle runs" on the honeycomb to communicate direction and distance for other bees.


Scientists at the University of Sussex say gravity appears to be why the dance performed vertically on a honeycomb is more precise than when bees do it on horizontal surfaces within the hive.

Researcher Margaret Couvillon found bees dancing vertically on the honeycomb made few "errors," repeating identical runs throughout the dance, while bees dancing on the horizontal had more scattered runs.

"They have a hard time when they're dancing horizontally -- the angles that they dance repeatedly are very different," Couvillon told the BBC.

The inconsistencies could be attributed to gravity, she suggested; when the bees are vertical on the comb they are aligned with the downward force but dancing horizontally requires more effort.

"If you were a rock climber and I asked you to get something to your right, at 90 degrees, it would be more difficult than getting something straight ahead of you," she explained.