Bees, Flowers, and Pollen: Some Photos

Bee with full pollen baskets:

Photo: Muhammad Mahdi Karim

Honeybee collecting pollen:

Photo: Christopher Down

Rosemary flower with landing strip:

Photo: Robyn Young

Flower as normally seen:

Photo: Fumio Yokozawa

Same flower using UV photography:

Photo: Fumio Yokozawa

Bee Knowledgeable Answers: Bees and Flowers Part 2

Now we know that bees and flowers have a special, symbiotic relationship. You may not realize that flowers have special ways to attract bees.

What do you think flowers do to attract bees? In which ways do they encourage bees to visit them?

1) Visually, or the way they look.

Plants make their flowers look very different from their leaves or stems.  The shape and color of flowers make them stand out from the rest of the plant.

Flowers have patterns or guides for bees, like airstrips for airplanes. Flowers have stripes and dots that are ‘landing strips’, showing the bee where to land. They also have a ‘bull’s-eye’, like the center of a target, to show the bee where she can find the nectar.

Sometimes these patterns can be hard to see for a human, because the patterns are only visible in UV light. A honeybee sees UV light and can see the patterns vividly on the flower.

2) Olfactory, or smell.

Most flowers have a fragrance. Some have a very light smell, like a daisy. And some are very strong, like a rose. Bees have a very sensitive sense of smell. They have olfactory sensors, or ‘noses’, on the ends of their antenna (and many other places on their bodies). Flowers use this sensitivity to smell to attract bees.

Bee Knowledgeable Questions: Bees and Flowers Part 2

Now we know that bees and flowers have a special, symbiotic relationship. You may not realize that flowers have special ways to attract bees.

What do you think flowers do to attract bees? In which ways do they encourage bees to visit them?

Bee Knowledgeable Answers: Bees and Flowers

We all know that bees love flowers, let's look at this special relationship.


Use a dictionary, your science textbook, or the internet to look up the word symbiosis.

1) What is the definition of symbiosis?

Symbiosis: n., the relation between two different species of organisms that are interdependent; each gaining benefit from the other.

This means that two completely different species of plant and/or animal work together, cooperate, and each one gets something they need from the other one.

Sometimes one organism gets what it needs from another and the other organism is harmed by the relationship. This kind of symbiosis is called parasitism.

Another kind of symbiosis, called commensalism, occurs when an organism gains a benefit and the other organism isn’t affected at all, neither harmed nor helped.

The third type of symbiotic relationship is called mutualism. This is when both organisms gain something helpful from the relationship. 

Mutualism is the type of symbiotic relationship between bees and flowers.

2) What are the main motivations for the bees to visit flowers? What do the bees want from the flowers?

Bees visit flowers for the nectar and pollen they find there. Nectar is an essential food for the bees. It is what they use to make honey. This is the “superfood” that keeps them going, gives them energy, and allows them to fly for many miles and hours at a time. Bees also gather the pollen from flowers. Pollen provides the protein that the bee needs to survive.

All of the bees nutritional needs come from flowers.

3) What main benefits do the flowers get from the bees?

So what do the flowers get out of it? Each time a bee visits a flower, she is dusted with the flower’s pollen. The bee’s body is covered with tiny hairs that have an electrostatic charge. This helps the pollen dust from the anthers of the flower to stick to all the fine hairs covering the bee.

The bee leaves to visit another flower and grooms herself, pushing the pollen dust collected on her body into her pollen baskets. Pollen baskets, or corbicula, are stiffer hairs on the bee’s legs that weave together to hold a bundle of pollen. The bee even uses one hair like a pushpin to secure the bundle down.

In the process of the bee grooming her body, some of the pollen dust scatters off of her and onto the new flower that the bee is perched upon. The pollen is transferred to the stigma of the new flower and fertilizes or pollinates the flower. Pollination is when pollen is transferred from the anther to the stigma of flowers. Fertilization then occurs and the flower’s ovule develops into a seed. This is how plants reproduce.

There are many plants that depend only on bees to reproduce and make new plants. Just a few of the plants that are dependent mainly on bees for fertilization include alfalfa (cows eat this), almonds, apples, berries, melons, and most vegetables. The list of plants that need bees to exist is quite long.

Can you imagine what would happen without bees to do this very important job? These plants would die off and possibly become extinct, no longer occurring in our world.

What would a cheeseburger look like? Well, it would just be a bun. There would be no hamburger meat, because cows need to eat plants that are dependent on bees. So no steaks either. And no milk or cheeses, as these come from cows as well. There would be no tomato, lettuce, or onion on your cheeseburger. The only part of a cheeseburger that would still be possible would be the bread of the bun because bread comes from wheat and wheat is wind pollinated, not insect pollinated. Or how about sitting down to a tasty pizza without sauce, cheese or pepperoni? Yuck.

In fact, bees and other insect pollinators are necessary for a third of our world’s food. That means that when you sit down to eat, every third bite of food depends on bees to be on your plate.

Happy New Year!

Out with the old and in with the new, and not only a new year but a new decade. Take a look around and see what new, small things you can change in your life that will help keep our remarkable planet healthy.

The bees are disappearing and this tells us that we need to change how we grow our foods and how we choose to live our lives. Take initiative. What choices are you making that could be better ones?