Nobody imagines Maya the bee having a cup of coffee to start working, but the truth is that caffeine helps bees to better remember where the flowers are. A team of scientists has studied this effect and publishes their results in the journal Science .
The researchers, from the University of Newcastle (United Kingdom), gave the bees nectar containing caffeine in the same doses as some plant genera such as Coffea and Citrus , and found that, one day after consuming it, the bees were three times more likely to remember the floral scent and return to the plant . In addition, three days later, twice as many bees that had taken caffeine were able to return. "The caffeine in nectar improves the ability of bees to find food, and in turn provides the plant with more faithful pollinators, which will return for more nectar," explained Geraldine Wright, one of the authors of the research.
Just as very strong black coffee tastes very bitter to the human palate, very high concentrations of caffeine repel bees . Therefore, the concentrations of caffeine in plant nectar are not strong enough to repel bees, but they are strong enough to activate memory in these animals.
This work is part of a series of studies aimed at investigating the dangers that threaten pollinating insects and developing strategies to mitigate them, since the decline in bee populations has serious consequences for agriculture and ecosystems.
