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Detecting poisons in nectar is an odour-ous task for honeybees
April 02, 2007Though many spring flowers have bright advertisements offering sweet rewards to honeybees, some common flowers have not-so-sweet or even toxic nectars. Why plants would try to poison the honeybees they wish to attract is a scientific mystery. The honeybee, which accounts for the pollination of at least 1/3 of the world's crop plants, may encounter such poisoned nectar in common crop and garden plants such as Rhododendrons and almond trees. Can honeybees learn whether nectar contains toxins, and does this influence their ability as pollinators? Dr Geraldine Wright (Newcastle University) will present data on how toxins in nectar affect a honeybee's willingness to eat floral nectar on Sunday 1st April at the Society for Experimental Biology's Annual Meeting in Glasgow.
Honeybees are very clever and can learn to associate almost any colour, shape, texture or scent with food. The newly-sequenced honeybee genome has revealed that honeybees do not have as many genes for taste receptors as other animals of a similar size, such as flies and mosquitoes. This prompted scientists to think that perhaps honeybees had a reduced need to detect and learn about toxins, despite the fact that some floral nectar contains toxins. Work carried out by Dr Wright and colleagues suggests that honeybees may have the ability to react to toxins, even if they cannot taste them.
Researchers found that both the sugar content and the toxins in nectar affected a honeybee's memory for learned odours. Honeybees learned not to respond to odours associated with toxins within 20 min of eating toxins, and would retain this ability up to 24 hours after eating a toxin. This suggests that honeybees can react to toxins in nectar, but that this ability may mainly be after they have ingested the toxins.
Society for Experimental Biology
Society for Experimental Biology
Honeybee Current Events and Honeybee News RSSPenn researchers use honeybee venom toxin to develop a new tool for studying hypertension
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have modified a honeybee venom toxin so that it can be used as a tool to study the inner workings of ion channels that control heart rate and the recycling of salt in kidneys.
Saving our bees
Most of the world's plant species rely on animals to transfer their pollen to other plants. The undisputed queen of these animal pollinators is the bee, made up of about 30,000 species worldwide, whose daily flights aid in the reproduction of more than half of the world's flowering plants.
Bees go 'off-color' when they are sickly
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Honeybee dance breaks down cultural barrier
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Memory in honeybees: What the right and left antenna tell the left and right brain
It is widely known that the right and left hemispheres of the brain perform different tasks. Lesions to the left hemisphere typically bring impairments in language production and comprehension, while lesions to the right hemisphere give rise to deficits in the visual-spatial perception, such as the inability to recognize familiar faces.
Bee researchers close in on Colony Collapse Disorder
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Size and positioning of floral anthers facilitates pollen collection by bees
Unlike moths and butterflies that are often brilliantly colored to warn potential predators that they carry toxins, flowers and the fruits they produce have brilliant colors and unusual shapes because they want to attract the attention of pollinators and frugivores who will disperse their pollen and seed, thus guaranteeing the next generation.
Undergraduate research shows leaderless honeybee organizing
Undergraduate education generally involves acquiring "received knowledge" - in other words, absorbing the past discoveries of scholars and scientists. But University of North Carolina at Charlotte senior biology major Andrew Pierce went beyond the textbooks and uncovered something previously unknown.
Why do some queen bees eat their worker bee's eggs?
Worker bees, wasps, and ants are often considered neuter. But in many species they are females with ovaries, who although unable to mate, can lay unfertilized eggs which turn into males if reared.
New behavior may use old genes
Though you may not be able to teach an old dog new tricks, ASU researchers have found that evolution may have taught old genes new tricks in the development of social behavior in honeybees.
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