The anti-waggle dance: use of the stop signal as negative feedback

*Correspondence: Parry M. Kietzman, Department of Entomology, University of California, Riverside, 900 University Ave., Riverside, CA 92521, USA e-mail: [email protected] Numerous activities within honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) colonies rely on feedback loops for organization at the group level. Classic examples of these self-organizing behaviors occur during foraging and swarm nest site selection. The waggle dance provides positive feedback, promoting foraging at a specific location or increased scouting at a potential nest site. Rather less well known than the waggle dance is the stop signal, a short vibration often delivered while butting against a dancing bee. It is currently best understood as a counter to the waggle dance, offering negative feedback toward the advertised foraging location or nest site. When the stop signal is received by a waggle dancer she is more likely to terminate her dance early and retire from the dance floor. Bees that experienced danger or overcrowding at a food source are more likely to perform the stop signal upon their return to the colony, resulting in an inhibition of foraging at that location. During a swarm’s nest site selection process, scout bees that visited a different site than the one being advertised are more likely to stop-signal the waggle dancer than are scouts that had visited the same site. Over time, the scout bees build recruitment to a single site until a quorum is reached and the swarm can move to it. The balance between the positive feedback from the waggle dance and the negative feedback from the stop signal allows for a more sensitive adjustment of response from the colony as a unit. Many of the processes associated with the feedback loops organizing a honey bee colony’s activities are in striking parallel to other systems, such as intercellular interactions involved in motor neuron function.