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.