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Stingless Bee Food Location Communication: From the Flowers to the Honey Pots

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Pot-Honey

Abstract

Colonies of meliponine bees consist of hundreds to thousands of individuals, both adults and brood; however, the responsibility of bringing food home depends on just a small group of workers, the foragers. Honey, pollen, and other products that beekeepers obtain come from the hard work of these few bees. Thus in many of these species complex behavioral mechanisms have evolved in order to make more efficient the collection of food and to allow the survival of the colony. This chapter describes in some detail the processes associated with the communication systems in meliponines that permit them to improve food gathering at a social level. Given the great amount of knowledge obtained in studying honeybee communication, several references to Apis mellifera are given throughout.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the opportune suggestions made by Dr. James Nieh which greatly improved this manuscript, and to the financial support of CONACYT agreement no. 128702 “Evolución de la Cleptobiosis en Lestrimelitta (Apidae, Meliponini)”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Carretera Antiguo Aeropuerto Km 2.5, Tapachula, Chiapas CP, 30700, Mexico

    Daniel Sánchez & Rémy Vandame

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  1. Daniel Sánchez
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  2. Rémy Vandame
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Correspondence to Daniel Sánchez .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Zumba Sur, University of the Andes, Villa Del Rio 8, Merida, 5101, Venezuela

    Patricia Vit

  2. Av. Bandeirantes, 3900, Ribeirão Preto, 14040-901, São Paulo, Brazil

    Silvia R. M. Pedro

  3. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa, Ancon, Panama

    David Roubik

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Sánchez, D., Vandame, R. (2013). Stingless Bee Food Location Communication: From the Flowers to the Honey Pots. In: Vit, P., Pedro, S., Roubik, D. (eds) Pot-Honey. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4960-7_12

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