Followers of honey bee waggle dancers change their behaviour when dancers are sleep-restricted or perform imprecise dances

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Communication and sleep are important for humans and honey bees alike. Despite this, studies reporting consequences of sleep loss on animal communication – both signalling and receiving – are surprisingly limited. Honey bees (Apis mellifera) can famously signal the destination of a food source with a waggle dance, but when sleep-restricted, dancers perform directionally less precise dances. We analysed dance follower behaviour with respect to a dance's directional precision and whether or not the dancer had been sleep-restricted. Followers were more likely to switch dances if following an imprecise dance and more likely to exit the nest if following a precise dance. Followers were also more likely to exit the nest after following a dance composed of more iterations (waggle phases), but only if the dancer was sleep-restricted. Bees appeared to follow fewer waggle phases of a dance that was less precise, but, again, only if the dancer was sleep-restricted. Following fewer waggle phases has been shown to decrease a bee's flight accuracy, so our results suggest that cues associated with sleep loss could affect a follower's foraging success. This study presents a unique case of sender–receiver effects of sleep loss in an invertebrate, and a possible precision-dependent vulnerability in colonies of honey bees.