TOEFL Listening

🎧 Listening Transcript

Listen to part of a lecture in a biology class. The professor is discussing the behavior of honeybees. Professor: Today we’re going to talk about how honeybees communicate. You might have heard about the famous 'waggle dance.' But there’s more to it. When a forager bee finds a good nectar source, she returns to the hive and performs this dance. The dance conveys two key pieces of information: direction and distance. The direction is indicated by the angle of the dance relative to the sun. For example, if the bee dances straight up on the vertical comb, that means the food is directly toward the sun. If she dances at an angle to the left or right, that corresponds to the angle of the food source relative to the sun. Distance, on the other hand, is signaled by the duration of the waggle phase. A longer waggle means the food is farther away. Interestingly, the dance also encodes the quality of the food source. Bees that find a richer nectar source tend to dance more vigorously and repeat the dance more often. This helps recruit other bees to the best locations. So, the dance is not just a simple signal, but a complex form of communication that allows the colony to make efficient foraging decisions.