Don’t know if this helps:



When a honey bee laden with nectar returns to the hive, she acquires information about the

balance between her colony's nectar collecting rate and its nectar processing capacity by noting the time

spent searching to find a food-storer bee (who unloads and stores the forager's nectar). By modelling this

search process, and experimentally testing a basic prediction of the model, search time was found to be an

accurate indicator of the ratio of the two variables, with reliability guaranteed by the rules of probability.

For example, if the collecting rate increases while the process capacity remains constant, then the proportion

off ood storers in the unloading area decreases, hence there is an automatic increase in the expected

number of bees that a forager must sample before finding a food-storer bee.



On the one hand, if this search is short (less than

20 s), which arises if the colony's collection rate falls

well below its processing capacity, then foragers

are stimulated to perform waggle dances. This will

recruit additional bees to food sources and so boost

the colony's rate of nectar collection (Lindauer

1948; Seeley 1989). On the other hand, if this search

is long (more than 50 s), which occurs when the

collection rate exceeds the processing capacity,

then foragers are stimulated to perform tremble

dances. Evidently, this will prompt additional bees

to serve as food storers and so boost the colony's

processing capacity (Seeley 1992). Hence a honey

bee colony possesses special feedback mechanisms

that enable it to coordinate its nectar collectors and

nectar processors.



Seeley, Thomas D., and Craig A. Tovey. "Why search time to find a food-storer bee accurately indicates the relative rates of nectar collecting and nectar processing in honey bee colonies." Animal Behaviour 47.2 (1994): 311-316.



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