<center>![](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmQLi6qF6B7o3Jf2AZzFN25YjMnJ1mAavCuYBX75mAbkqH/image.png)</center>

The two assistant professors and their teams have decoded the language of honey bees in such a way that will allow other scientists across the globe to interpret the insects' highly sophisticated and complex communications.

In a paper appearing in April's issue of Animal Behaviour, the researchers present an extraordinary foundational advance - a universal calibration, or for science fiction aficionados, a "babel fish," that translates honey bee communications across sub-species and landscapes. By deciphering the instructive messages encoded in the insects' movements, called waggle dances, the teams hope to better understand the insects' preferred forages and the location of these food sources.

The researchers analyzed the dances of 85 marked bees from three hives.

Honey bee transmissions, as it turns out, have echoing agricultural, environmental, and economic ramifications. The USDA estimates that one out of every three bites of food in the United States depends on honey bees and other pollinators. In monetary terms, insect pollinators support crop yields and agricultural ecosystems and are believed to contribute an estimated $24 billion to the U.S. economy annually.

"We have collected this information from many bees in two different landscapes separated by an ocean and several years," said Couvillon. "However, there is still a lot we don't know about what the bees are feeding on. So, imagine decoding many dances and plotting them on a map to see where the bees are going. We wanted to do this by season to provide a comprehensive look at what they are foraging and where. This way, we can also see when it's harder for them to find forage and when it's easier."

Team members spend months analyzing each dancer's movements to determine a distance-to-duration calibration.

"While there were differences among populations in how they communicate, it doesn't matter from the bees' perspective," said Schürch. "We cannot tell them apart in terms of how they translate this information. There is huge overlap. In effect, a bee from England would understand a bee from Virginia and would find a food source in the same way with a similar success rate."

By combining all of their calibration data, Couvillon and Schürch have made their work universal for other researchers, providing scientists around the world with a codex to decipher where bees are collecting food. Such knowledge stands not only to inform best practices for bee-friendly planting, but will be crucial to maintaining their populations.

"We think that this research can enable bees to be used as bio-indicators," said Couvillon. "The bees can tell us in high spatial and temporal resolution where forage is available and at what times of the year. So, if you want to build a mall for example, we would know if prime pollinator habitat would be destroyed. And, where bees forage, other species forage as well. Conservation efforts can follow."

<center><h1>[LINK TO ARTICLE SOURCE](https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-03/vt-ctu032719.php)</h1></center>

<h3>So, just think about how cool it will be once ML and AI get involved with the analyzing of the bees. I am thinking that it would be able to save a good amount of time off the months it takes for them to currently id various communications.
>"We are a year-and-a-half removed from bee analysis. Imagine if you got it instantaneously," said Couvillon.
</h3>