Trophallaxis

Definition

A returning forager passes her nectar to a house bee, who may pass it on again, and a substantial part of honey ripening happens during those exchanges. Trophallaxis also circulates queen pheromone through the colony and spreads information about the quality and quantity of incoming forage — which is how a colony without a manager allocates its workforce.

Where the word gets used loosely

Usually described as feeding. It is at least as much communication: the rate and eagerness of exchanges tell a forager whether her patch is worth returning to.

Guide records that discuss this

• The signals inside a colonyThe waggle dance is the famous one and it is not the important one. A colony runs on a repertoire of vibratory pulses, brief contacts and chemical messages, several of which do more work in an ordinary day than the dance does in a season.
• How bees communicate by smellA honey bee colony is held together chemically. More than a dozen pheromones are known, they overlap in function, and most of what a bee does in a day is a response to one of them rather than to anything it has seen.

Question records that discuss this

• Why do bees feed each other mouth to mouth?It is called trophallaxis, and it does two jobs at once. It distributes food through the colony, and it distributes information: pheromones, including queen substance, and the odours of whatever is currently being collected, circulate through the same exchanges. It is how a colony behaves as a connected system.