Honeybee flight data after encountering a detour

Flight bearing data of honeybees after encountering a detour, included in the publication Hadjitofi et al. (2025):
Anna Hadjitofi, Marie Messerich, Tim Landgraf, Barbara Webb; Honeybees express foodward flight vectors after a detour. J Exp Biol 15 November 2025; 228 (22): jeb251072. doi: https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.251072.
SummaryThe honeybee waggle dance communicates a flight vector to a food source1, but it is challenging to isolate how precisely dancers and recruits can navigate using this vector information independently of environmental cues. Our work2 introduced an enforced-detour paradigm3, using narrow tunnels, to quantify the initial flight vectors expressed by experienced foragers and new recruits en route to the food. This dataset includes post-detour flight bearings captured at successive distances from the tunnel exit, along with in-hive waggle dance data. Our exploration of the data suggests that bees exhibit immediate corrective turns consistent with using path integration to fly towards the food; and that the communicated or recalled vector provides an approximate location rather than pinpoint accuracy.
Data & CodeA python script has been provided (generate_plots_JEB.py) that can be used to reproduce the figures in the paper. This script demonstrates how the supplied data files (given in csv) format can be used to plot the data.The code used to simulate the assimilation circuit for the dance recruits is available at the dance2vec Github repo (see also Hadjitofi and Webb (2024)4).Other small software tools include: the use of pypylon to orchestrate filming with Basler cameras (beebasler); and the use of background subtraction algorithms for tracking the bees' flight in video recordings (bee flight tracer).ReferencesFrisch, K. V. (1993). The dance language and orientation of bees. Harvard University Press.Hadjitofi, A., Messerich, M., Landgraf, T., & Barbara Webb (2025). Honeybees express foodward flight vectors after a detour. J Exp Biol, 228(22).Collett, M., Collett, T. S., & Wehner, R. (1999). Calibration of vector navigation in desert ants. Current Biology, 9(18).Hadjitofi, A., & Webb, B. (2024). Dynamic antennal positioning allows honeybee followers to decode the dance. Current Biology, 34(8), 1772-1779.