Bees Love Caffeine: Flowers May Lace Their Nectar with the Chemical

First Posted: Oct 16, 2015 09:49 AM EDT
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Humans aren't the only ones who like caffeine. It turns out that bees can resist it, either. Scientists have found that bees will actually seek out caffeinated nectar over plain nectar.

Interestingly, it seems like plants may be responding to this preference. Scientists have found that plants may be lacing their nectar with caffeine as a way to pass off cheaper goods.

"We describe a novel way in which some plants, through the action of a secondary compound like caffeine that is present in nectar, may be tricking the honey bee by securing loyal and faithful foraging and recruitment behaviors, perhaps without providing the best quality forage," said Margaret Couvillon, one of the researchers, in a news release.

In this latest study, the researchers tested bees' responses to a sucrose solution with field-realistic doses of caffeine or without. They found that the caffeine caused honey bees to forage more and to direct their friends to the caffeinated forage more frequently with waggle dances. In fact, the caffeine quadrupled the recruitment dances of bees to the caffeinated feeders in comparison to the uncaffeinated controls.

"We were surprised at how, across the board, we saw an effect of caffeine just about everywhere we looked in foraging and recruitment, and all in the direction to make the colony more faithful to the caffeinated source compared to an equal-quality, uncaffeinated source," said Roger Schurch, one of the researchers.

The research model suggests that caffeinated nectar could reduce honey production in colonies if plants reduce the sweetness of their nectar. Currently, the researchers hope to find out whether plants actually lace their nectar with caffeine.

The findings are published in the journal Current Biology.

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