An article in New Scientist (21 March, p.20) reports work published recently
in Naturwissenschaften (78:471) showing that a honeybee worker that finds a
good food source elevates its temperature when dancing back at the hive.
Dancing bees had temperatures of about 43 C, compared to 35 C for other bees
in the hive.  Body temperature reflected quality of the food source the bee
had discovered.
Another paper (Oecologia 89:113) mentioned in the same article reported on a
study of honeybees using a repellent pheromone to mark flowers they had just
visited.  This apparently helps to increase the efficiency of foraging by
preventing them from visiting flowers that have been emptied recently.
David Inouye
University of Maryland