UC San Diego

Summary The stingless bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Meliponinae) reportedly possess communication systems with a broad range of complexity. However, prior research has focused on species that can accurately communicate food location. Little is known about species with a weak ability to communicate food location. We therefore examined the spatial communication abilities of a putatively primitive stingless bee, Trigona carbonaria. We trained foragers to one feeder (the experimental feeder) and set out an array of identical control feeders to test the communication of direction and distance. Recruits could find the food source at the correct direction, but this was influenced by orientation to food odor and a favorable wind direction. In trials with scented feeders, significantly more newcomers (71%) arrived in the correct direction when the experimental feeder was directly upwind from the nest. When the experimental feeder was downwind from the nest, a non-significant majority of newcomers (51%) arrived at the experimental feeder. However, orientation to food odor is not essential, since significantly more newcomers arrived at the experimental feeder in the unscented direction trial with rapid recruitment (50 newcomers/hours, 195 forager visits per hour). Experienced foragers did not appear to communicate distance because newcomers (61%) generally preferred the closest feeder to the nest, even in the unscented distance experiments. Overall, our results suggest that recruits can orient to the scent of the food source and may also orient to a forager-deposited pheromone at the food source or follow experienced foragers for part of the distance to the food source. © by Urban & Fischer Verlag.