Bee Efficiency. White Crocus, Nellestein, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
In 1793 the great German botanist and entomologist Christian Konrad Sprengel (1750-1816) wrote the first study of flower markings related to all kinds of insect activity. I've mentioned his work before: www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/41504637505/in/photoli....
Of course, this is a fascinating topic and lots of research has been done on it since Sprengel's time.
In the photo you can see in a Crocus those so-called flower or nectar lines or guides purple against the white petals.
In 2013 scientists in the USA (Anne S. Leonard, Joshua Brent, Daniel R. Papaj, Anna Dornhaus) studied how efficient those lines are for Bumblebees in their foraging
(www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3572167/). By ingenious methods they found that Bees gather nectar twice as quickly on flowers with nectar guides than if they lack them. Moreover, so-called 'nectar robbing' is cut back as well. 'Nectar robbing' is the phenomenon that Bumblebees 'illegitimately' by-pass the top of the flower altogether and gnaw a hole at its base to access nectar there. That procedure is quite inefficient from the flower's perspective, because the Bee thereby passes by all the instruments (stamen and pistil) necessary for its pollination.
Highly interesting stuff, indeed.
Bee Efficiency. White Crocus, Nellestein, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
In 1793 the great German botanist and entomologist Christian Konrad Sprengel (1750-1816) wrote the first study of flower markings related to all kinds of insect activity. I've mentioned his work before: www.flickr.com/photos/87453322@N00/41504637505/in/photoli....
Of course, this is a fascinating topic and lots of research has been done on it since Sprengel's time.
In the photo you can see in a Crocus those so-called flower or nectar lines or guides purple against the white petals.
In 2013 scientists in the USA (Anne S. Leonard, Joshua Brent, Daniel R. Papaj, Anna Dornhaus) studied how efficient those lines are for Bumblebees in their foraging
(www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3572167/). By ingenious methods they found that Bees gather nectar twice as quickly on flowers with nectar guides than if they lack them. Moreover, so-called 'nectar robbing' is cut back as well. 'Nectar robbing' is the phenomenon that Bumblebees 'illegitimately' by-pass the top of the flower altogether and gnaw a hole at its base to access nectar there. That procedure is quite inefficient from the flower's perspective, because the Bee thereby passes by all the instruments (stamen and pistil) necessary for its pollination.
Highly interesting stuff, indeed.