Trophallaxis in bees

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 2 P.M. CDT APRIL 27 (MONDAY) Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign developed an automated system to study bees engaged in trophallaxis, a process by which honey bees exchange regurgitated food and other liquids. They used this system to study how infection with the Israeli acute paralysis virus might affect the bees’ trophallaxis social network. The researchers tagged honey bees with the equivalent of a QR code and taught their automated system to recogniz