Caffeine is the only way some people can start their morning, and as it turns out it could be the same for bees as well.
New research in the UK shows flowers could be tricking bees into pollinating them by getting the bees buzzing on caffeine in their nectar, even though the nectar might not be the best quality.
Given the choice, it appears bees pick caffeinated nectar over a non-caffeinated but equal quality version, Margaret Couvillon of the University of Sussex says in an article published in Current Biology today.
"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 behaviours, perhaps without providing the best quality forage," she says.
Roger Schürch, of the University of Sussex and the University of Bern, says the process is "akin to drugging" the bees.
"The duped pollinators forage and recruit accordingly."
Many flowering plants have nectar with low concentrations of caffeine and the researchers recreated that to test their hypothesis.
They used a sucrose solution both with and without the realistic doses of caffeine and found honey bees forage more at caffeinated sources and do their 'waggle dance' to direct their mates to it too.
The caffeine quadrupled the number of dances to get bees to the feeders compared to the non-caffeinated control.
The bees were also more eager to get back to the caffeinated source even though there was no nectar left.
After sipping from the caffeinated nectar, they were less inclined to go searching for other resources.
"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", Dr Schürch says.
Observations of individual bees' behaviour also suggests caffeinated nectar could reduce honey production in colonies if plants reduce the sweetness of their nectar.
The research builds on previous studies which found honey bees are better at learning and remembering particular smells when they've had caffeine and the authors suggest a role for reward pathways in the bees' brains.
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