The Honeybee's Waggle Dance: Reading Comprehension Worksheet

Read the passage

The same text as the printed sheet, with the same paragraph numbers the questions refer to — for reading aloud from a screen or a board.

1. A honeybee hive can hold thousands of bees, but only some of them leave the hive to look for food. These bees are called foragers. When a forager finds a patch of flowers full of nectar, it flies home with news to share. It cannot speak, so it dances.
2. Inside the dark hive, the forager climbs onto the honeycomb and begins the waggle dance. It runs forward in a straight line while shaking its body from side to side. Then it circles back to where it started and does the same run again, many times over.
3. The direction of the straight run works like a map. If the bee runs straight up the comb, the flowers are in the same direction as the sun. If it runs a little to the right of straight up, the flowers are that far to the right of the sun.
4. The dance also shows how far away the food is. The longer the bee waggles on each run, the farther the other bees must fly. A short waggle means the flowers are close to the hive.
5. Other bees crowd around the dancer and follow its moves with their bodies. They also smell the flowers on its hairy body. Then they fly off to find the patch for themselves.

The questions

The answers, and the paragraph each one comes from, are on the last page of the PDF — not here, so a student reading on screen cannot see them.

1. In paragraph 1, what is a forager?
   1. a bee that guards the door of the hive
   2. a bee that leaves the hive to look for food
   3. the queen bee, who lays the eggs
   4. a bee that stays inside to build honeycomb
2. How does the dance show how far away the flowers are?
   1. by how many bees are watching
   2. by how loudly the dancer buzzes
   3. by how long the bee waggles on each run
   4. by which way the bee faces when it stops
3. A forager does its straight run straight DOWN the comb. Where are the flowers?
   1. in the same direction as the sun
   2. in the opposite direction from the sun
   3. a little to the right of the sun
   4. inside the hive
4. Name two ways the other bees learn about the flowers from the dancer. (written answer)
5. Why do you think the other bees crowd close to the dancer instead of watching from far away? (written answer)

How the reading level was set

This passage was written to the Grades 3–4 band: Sentences of about eleven to fifteen words on average, a few subject words (forager, crescent) defined in context, and paragraphs that each develop one step of an explanation, so a reader has to follow a sequence rather than a single fact. The band is a judgement, not a readability score — no Lexile measure or grade-level formula has been applied. These are the counts it rests on, taken from the text itself:

Words:

214

Sentences:

16

Average sentence:

13.4 words

Longest sentence:

22 words

Words of seven letters or more:

11%

Sources for the facts in this passage

The passage is original writing, not an excerpt or an adaptation. Its facts were checked against these pages:

• NC State Extension — The Honey Bee Dance Language — The dance happens on the upright honeycomb in the dark hive; the angle of the straight run from straight up matches the angle of the food from the sun (straight up means toward the sun, straight down means directly away); a longer waggle means food farther away; followers stay close to the dancer and pick up the scent of the flowers.

More reading comprehension passages

• Beavers Build a HomeGrades 1–2 · Life science — animal homes
• How Bread RisesGrades 1–2 · Physical science — everyday chemistry
• Why the Moon Seems to Change ShapeGrades 3–4 · Earth and space science — the Moon
• The Pony ExpressGrades 5–6 · US history — communication in the 1860s
• Tardigrades: Tiny SurvivorsGrades 5–6 · Life science — extreme survival

Or see every passage, grouped by reading level, on the reading comprehension worksheets page.