One things bees and humans have in common: we both like
caffeine. Citrus flowers naturally have caffeine in their nectar and use it to
keep their bee customers coming back for more. Seeing as bees visit so many
flowers a day, it’s difficult to remember the location of certain flowers. A
new study lead by Geraldine Wright, a Newcastle University neuroethologist,
shows that caffeine boosts the bees’ memory and helps them remember the
flower’s scent so they can later return for the java-like nectar.
Plants
produce caffeine because they use it as a defense mechanism to ward off insects
with the bitter taste. The study measured the amount of caffeine in three
species of the Coffea plant as well as four species of the citrus plant and
they all contained caffeine. They also measured caffeine’s effect on the bees’
memory. They conducted an exercise and found that three times as many bees
remembered a scent paired with caffeine twenty-four hours later, and twice as
many remembered the scent three days later.
In a way,
bees get the better end of the deal when it comes to caffeine. We get an energy
boost and a crash a few hours later, while they get a memory boost that can
last for up to three days. For the full article go to Science.NBCNews. For more information go
to National Geographic.
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