How do bees warn each other of danger?
Short answerTrueEstablished evidence
Chemically, mostly. When a worker stings, the sting apparatus releases a blend whose most abundant component smells strongly of bananas. It marks the target and lowers the threshold at which nearby bees will attack, which is why one sting is often followed by more in the same place.
The two alarm signals
- Sting alarm pheromone, released with the sting, dominated by isopentyl acetate — the compound that gives bananas much of their smell. It marks the target and recruits defenders.
- A second, shorter-range alarm pheromone released from the mandibles when a bee bites, which acts closer in.
There is also a behavioural component. Guard bees at the entrance adopt a characteristic raised, open-jawed posture, and disturbed colonies produce an audible change in tone that beekeepers learn to recognise long before they can explain it.
Why smoke works
The practical consequences follow directly: do not eat a banana next to a hive, do not stay in a place where a sting has just happened, and if a colony has been disturbed, more smoke and less movement are both worth more than speed.
Sources
- Pheromones of Social Bees — Chapman and Hall (1987) · Monograph
- Pheromone communication in the honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) — Journal of Chemical Ecology (2005) · Peer-reviewed article
- The Biology of the Honey Bee — Harvard University Press (1987) · Textbook
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