Big bees can find the best flowers

study shows that bumblebees take the time to find the best flowers. At the same time, smaller bumblebees - with shorter flight distances and weaker carrying capacity - don't particularly d'on finding the most nectar-rich flowers.
at the University of Exeter and the University of Sussex studied the study flights most bees make after they leave flowers. It is well known that bees fly like this, but studies have shown that bumblebees do the same, and they look back over and over to remember the location of a flower. The paper was published recently in Current Biology.natalie Hempel de Ibarra, associate professor at the University of Exeter's Centre for Animal Behaviour Research, said:
Pollinators learn and develop a preference for individual flowers, and in fact bumblebees are selective of flowers. They can actively decide how much effort to spend to remember where the flowers are. What's more, our amazing finding is that body size determines this decision-making and learning behavior. In
study, the researchers asked captive bees to look at artificial flowers containing different concentrations of sucrose solution. The larger its size, the more its learning behavior depends on the richness of the sucrose solution. Whether the sucrose concentration is high or low, smaller bees spend the same amount of energy learning where to spend.
" differences reflect the different roles of bumblebees in their populations. "Because bumblebees carry more weight than bumblebees, they explore farther away from their nests. Small wasps with smaller flight distances and loads cannot be so selective, so they accept a wider variety of flowers. As
, these bees tend to be more involved in nesting and only go out for food if food is not available in the group.
relevant paper information: