http://www.metafysica.nl/nature/insect/nomos_64.html hat geschrieben:[...]

We must still dwell on one trait in the life-activities of the ponerines which throws a definite light on their origin. This is the so-called "licking of the larvae by the fertile female founding her colony, and later also generally by worker individuals". It consists of the fact that adult ants eagery lick up fat exudates, coming through the delicate skin of the larvae. This licking activity starts almost immediately after the emergence of the larvae and lasts for all of their life. In this the ants, when they lick their larvae, characteristically squeeze and pluck them, especially on the thoracic segments, with the clear intention to assist exudation.

Let us now remember that the fertile female Scleroderma, founding her family, also nibbles at various places of the skin of the paralyzed prey, effecting with this the excretion of small droplets of hemolymph from the wounds inflicted earlier by the sting. She also often licks her larvae, which are going to develop on the body of this prey. From here we must conclude that licking the skin of the larvae is essentially the same act that is applied until now on the body of the prey. So licking the larvae by the ponerines must be seen as a direct indication to an earlier followed course of an ectoparasitic phase of development. But this isn't yet all. There is an indication that licking is just one of the forms of trophallaxis. Therefore we may say that trophallaxis in its most simple form distinguishes itself from mere licking only by the very place of the action, that is, not at the surface of the skin generally, but only at the places of the oral organs of the larvae.

So we come to the conclusion that trophallaxis, having originated in the course of the evolutionary development of ants, has very deep roots. From what is now clear, in the beginning it appears in the form of licking by the female of hemolymph from the body of a large prey, stung by its sting. After that it transformed into the habit of licking by the female of the integument of her developing larvae, and finally, from the moment of the mother offering chewed food to the mouth of the larvae, the beginning was laid down of its typical form -- mutual feeding.

Now we may confidently say that in the line of evolution of the bees (Apoidea) trophallaxis did not at all take place.

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