Bees choose best flowers even before landing just from the color of petals

July 31, 2014

As per a scientific study, Bumblebees select most nutritious flowers for providing best food for their young simply by looking at the colour of the petals even before landing on the flower. As bees do not ingest pollen unlike nectar while foraging on flowers, it has been unclear whether they are able to form associative relationships between what a flower looks like and the quality of its pollen. The study used bumblebee foragers housed under controlled conditions to test whether they do learn about flowers during pollen collection.
The findings showed that bumblebees can individually evaluate pollen samples and differentiate between them during collection, quickly forming preferences for a particular type of pollen. They are able to detect differences in pollen, even before landing, which means they may be able to discriminate, just from the colour of the petals, which flowers are richer in nutritious content.

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