What do bees use their antennae for?
Short answerTrueEstablished evidence
Almost everything. A bee's antennae carry its sense of smell, contact taste, touch, temperature, humidity and the detection of air movement and vibration. Johnston's organ in the second segment is how a follower reads a waggle dance in a completely dark hive — by feeling it rather than by hearing or seeing it.
What the antennae carry
| Structure | What it detects |
|---|---|
| Pore plates and olfactory hairs | Odours, including floral scent and pheromones |
| Contact chemoreceptors | Taste on touching a surface |
| Mechanoreceptive hairs | Touch, and airflow |
| Thermoreceptors and hygroreceptors | Temperature and humidity |
| Johnston's organ | Air particle movement and substrate vibration |
Reading a dance in the dark
There is no light inside a nest cavity, so nobody is watching a dancer. Followers press against her and detect the vibrations she transmits through the comb and the air jets from her wing movements, using Johnston's organ. The same channel carries queen piping, the stop signal and the shaking signal. In acoustic terms a bee colony is a network in a solid rather than in air.
Sources
- The Biology of the Honey Bee — Harvard University Press (1987) · Textbook
- The Mind of a Bee — Princeton University Press (2022) · Monograph
- The Dance Language and Orientation of Bees — Harvard University Press (1967) · Monograph
How sources are selected and weighted is set out in the sources and evidence policy.