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What's all the buzz about?
For kids: Find out how choosy bees choose which flowers they like.
By Randi Lynn Mrvosfrom the May 6, 2008 edition
Page 1 of 2
A bee buzzes from flower to flower. Will she choose red or pink, blue or purple? Not every flower will do.
Why do bees need flowers in the first place? Bees collect nectar and pollen from flowers as food for themselves and for the young bees in the hive.
Pollen is the fine powdery dust in flowers that is usually yellow. But some plants have red, blue, white, or black pollen. The pollen sticks to tiny hairs on the bee's body while she visits flowers. Bees comb off the pollen into pollen baskets, hollowed-out areas on both hind legs that are surrounded by stiff hairs.
Nectar is the sweet sticky liquid in a flower that's made mostly of sugar and water. Bees carry it in a special honey stomach, which lies in front of the stomach that digests a bee's own food.
When the worker bees return to the hive, the nectar they have collected will be turned into honey. Some of the nectar, however, will be mixed with pollen to form beebread, a protein-rich food used to feed young bees.
Rewarding journeys
Bees usually carry pollen from one flower species to another of the same species. This is called pollination. Pollination is a byproduct of a bee's travels from flower to flower. When bees pollinate flowers, they help flowers make seeds. Without bees to pollinate flowers, thousands species of plants would not be able to reproduce.
Worker bees go out from the hive when the weather is good to search for suitable flowers. Sometimes they fly two to three miles from the hive to collect food. They make up to a dozen trips a day, visiting hundreds of flowers.
Hive bees appear to communicate with field bees to tell them how much pollen and nectar is required. Beekeepers have observed that bees may vary the amounts of pollen and nectar carried each day, depending on the needs of the hive.
The right stuff for finding food
When it comes to finding the perfect flower, bees have four things going for them. First, they have a good sense of direction, which helps them return to the hive with no problem.
Second, they have an acute sense of smell that helps them detect a wide range of flower fragrances.
Third, bees remember. They can recognize and recall landmarks around their hives, flower patterns, and blooming schedules.
Fourth, bees have keen eyes. They can differentiate light from dark, distinguish shapes, and recognize difference in colors.
Bees see color as we do, but they can't detect the color red very well. They can see ultraviolet colors, however, which are radiation wavelengths that humans can't see. In fact, some flowers have ultraviolet nectar guides, which are markings that point bees to the nectar.
