This thread is in reference to stingless bees in particular. 

> The tropics and subtropics are home to thousands of different types of bees. One bee group that frequently calls an observer’s attention are the stingless bees or Meliponini. Like honey bees (Apini), stingless bees live in colonies and produce honey. The majority of stingless bee species can be found in the Neotropics (77%), followed by the Indo-Malay/Australasian region (16%) and the Afrotropics (7%).  

> Stingless bees are the oldest group of eusocial bees. They appeared in the Late Cretaceous, about 70–87 million years ago and lived alongside dinosaurs for millions of years. By this time, their ancestors had already lost a functional sting. The name “stingless bee” is slightly misleading, however, as they do have a vestigial leftover of what used to function as a sting. 

> Stingless bees share many characteristics with honey bees. They live in perennial colonies, have considerable caste differentiation between queens and workers, they build an elaborate nest that allows them to store large quantities of food and they use complex and interacting communication systems to coordinate their daily activities.

> The excitement observed by Lindauer and Kerr originated from the returning foragers, which performed “zigzag” or “jostling” runs during which they jostled other bees in their way . During these runs, which are usually performed close to the nest entrance  foragers irregularly run in all directions and occasionally perform sharp turns in a semicircle, which often end while the bee is facing the entrance. 

> The number of jostles (collisions) during hive stays predicts the number of bees recruited to a food source and in Melipona seminigra, inactive foragers start to bump into other bees themselves after they were jostled by a recruiting bee.

GRUTER, CHRISTOPH. (2021). STINGLESS BEES: Their Behaviour, Ecology and Evolution. SPRINGER.

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