Describing the first communication system that may be representational in stingless bees, Esch reported that two Brazilian species of Melipona broadcast sound pulses whose durations correlate with the distance to the food that they've just found. Another species, Melipona panamica , combines sound, motion, and scent for surprisingly informative communication, report Nieh and David W. Roubik of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama City, Panama. They recently noted that most nest mates of a recent forager flew to the feeding station she had just visited, even when it was 100 meters away and an identical station lay just 5 m from the nest. When researchers arranged the food so that foragers had to find their way over water, the bees still visited the target feeder. So, the foragers are not laying scent trails, Nieh and Roubik conclude.
Scent does seem to play a role though, they report.
They let bees visit a feeder and then traded it with one nearby. The scent doesn't seem to carry more than 2 to 4 m from the target, however. The communication system that the researchers have pieced together for this stingless bee bears only a passing resemblance to the honeybees'. When one of the stingless bees comes home after a good trip, she unloads her booty and beeps in loud pulses. His kinder, gentler rendition sounds a little like a dump truck backing up but with a lower pitch.