Which ant species is this? From what I remember, it's not exactly a liquid that tells the other ants to bury it. It's a type of acid, the smell of which the colony does not like-- with good reason, since, if left in the tunnels, the dead ants will eventually increase the mortality rates of their colony members.
The ants respond to this by picking up the ants that smell this way and removing them from the colony. I've heard of them either scattering the bodies, or placing the dead ants in piles, but never burying them, so I'm curious which one they're talking about
It's an acid that is created after a few days of being dead, and ants communicate with smells so they recognize if something is dead with the smell. Ants have a graveyard where they put dead ants, usually away from the ants, and usually slightly underground because they're ants. The alive ant actually accepts its fate because it too believes it's dead, but after some time in the graveyard they wipe the smell off by cleaning theirselves as they do regularly and they return to the colony after that
The ants respond to this by picking up the ants that smell this way and removing them from the colony. I've heard of them either scattering the bodies, or placing the dead ants in piles, but never burying them, so I'm curious which one they're talking about