Bees Know Their Business: They Learn Which Flowers Have The Best Pollen
Bumblebees can glean differences in pollen quality based on floral features like petal color and that informs their decision on where to land. Bees do not sample pollen so it has been unclear how they determined quality. The new study in the Journal of Experimental Biology found that they are able to form associative relationships between appearance and pollen quality. Bumblebees can individually assess pollen samples and discriminate between them during collection, quickly forming preferences for a particular type of pollen. Pollen foraging behavior involves learning and individual decision-making, which may allow bees to quickly learn which flowers provide the most nutritious pollen rewards for rearing their young, the authors write. read more