BEES really do dance - a Malvern professor is buzzing after proving the Nobel Prize-winning theory right after over quarter of a century.

Miniature radar attached to the back of bees in a glass hive has been used to settle years of scientific controversy.

The 'waggle dance' theory won zoologist Karl von Frisch the Nobel Prize in 1973 - he claimed the dance was used to tell other bees where food can be found.

Now Malvern scientist Professor Joe Riley has the proof and his findings were this week published in Nature, the world's most respected science journal.

"Most scientists believed von Frisch was right but nobody was certain until now," he said.

His team used miniature radar antennas attached to bees to track their flight patterns.

Returning bees were watched through the glass hives and, sure enough, the ones that found the food, did the dance.

Bees which saw the dance and got ready to leave the hive were captured, had antenna put on and were released.

The bees were then tracked heading off in the right direction towards the food and finding it.

Steve Carrott, treasurer of Malvern and Upton Beekeepers' Association, said keepers had been inclined to believe the theory.

"Beekeepers over the years have been a perceptive lot and it's always pleasing when new technology helps to confirm that," he said. "Karl von Frisch once said 'the life of the honey bee is like a magic well; the more you draw from it, the more there is to draw'."

Prof Riley, of Peachfield Road, has been tracking insects by radar since the 1990s, when he worked at DERA, now QinetiQ. He went on to work for Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire, one of the largest agricultural research institutes in Britain.

He featured in the Gazette in March, when he joined an extreme ironing team which ascended the 2,672-metre volcano, Mount Ruapehu, in New Zealand.