I tried to write a short story once. The characters were an entomologist grad student with an interest in interstellar communication, her boy friend in far off Australia who ran the big telescope array, and a bee, the worker supervisor that delegated task in the colonial hive.
The gist was the grad student was so interested in her career and minding the apiary of her mentor she would not succumb to her own biology and go to Australia and true love. Meanwhile in the colony, growth necessitated action. A decision was being made to reproduce the colony and swarm. This action required tremendous communication between tens of thousands of individuals.
The irony was the forlorn grad student was so intent on communications from space she overlooked the active communication in process literally at her fingertips, among the bees on the frames she was removing and studying.
If we can not communicate or understand the communications of the earthbound colonies of bees, there is virtually no hope of understanding extraterrestrials.
Wisdom!