With colleagues, the team bred a mixed-species bee colony at Zhangzhou, in Fujian province of China, composed of the Asiatic bee Apis cerana cerana (Acc), and the European bee Apis mellifera ligustica (Aml).

The scientists then used video cameras to record and analyse how the 'multicultural' bee colony behaved.

The mixed colony consisted of an Asian queen bee, and Asian and European workers. The team was pleasantly surprised how harmoniously the bees were able to coexist in the mixed-species colonies, said an A.R.C. Centre release.

'We were often able to observe both species of foragers dance in the mixed colony and saw the other species of bees following the dancing bee,' says Zhang.

'We concluded that Asian and European honeybees can learn to understand one another,' says Zhang.

These findings have been published in PLOS ONE.