In Praise Of Honey Bees

The Influence

Bumblebees are known to be excellent pollinators and a new study has found they can also be very persuasive: They can trick plants into flowering early when deprived of pollen, the BBC reported.

The hairy bees will begin nibbling distinctively-shaped holes on the leaves of flowerless plants, which trigger the plants to blossom sometimes up to 30 days earlier than normal.

Researchers were perplexed by this behavior and failed to achieve the same results when they replicated the damage done to the plants.

The findings showed that the bees also didn’t eat or use the bit-off material, nor did they damage plants that provided pollen.

“It’s possible that the bees also have some cue that they are providing to the plants that is specific to the bee,” suggested co-author Consuelo De Moraes. “And that could be secretions that we don’t know about but it’s something that we plan to investigate.”

Meanwhile, researchers are also considering the idea that plants are driving the behavior.

It is vital for plants that depend on pollination to have their flowers on display when the pollinators are buzzing around, wrote the broadcaster. It could be that some plants have developed a strategy to bloom when they recognize that the bee is nibbling on its leaves.

Scientists say that regardless, it’s important to understand the relationship between the plants and the bumblebees to help the creatures survive in the face of climate change.

“I think it’s fascinating how much we still don’t know about organisms that we think we know really well,” said De Moraes. “It absolutely increases our sense of wonder at the cleverness of nature in all its many forms.”