A study suggests that the way flowers look to bees may be changed by the use of pesticides.
Small electric fields are used to attract bees to flowers. According to the study, the bees seem to find the changes in the electric fields very strange.
Scientists looked at whether the smell, color, or electric charge of the flower affected bumblebees, a species of bees that are easy to use in experiments.
Bee's use a number of signals to decide which flower to land on. Like us, bees rely on the electric field of a flower to attract them.
The bees are flying through the air. Small bodies sense the electric field of a negatively charged flower.
The bees change the electric field when they pollinate. The next bees will be able to see from the electric field that the flowers are likely to be tapped out.
The study found that spraying syntheticfertilizer onto a field didn't change the color or smell of the flowers.
The way the flower's electric fields looked to the bees was affected by it.
"If you think about it, it's like that light is too bright and it's blinding them," said Hunting.
A study from the same group showed that bees can learn to read the characteristics of the electric fields.
The study found that bees could be trained to find a treat.
Scientists artificially charged flowers to mimic electric fields in order to see if the bees were being put off by the sprayed flowers. bumblebees were more likely to avoid flowers
According to Hunter, bees can learn from experience.
"If you spray a field and bees explore a field, they will not go there anymore and they will communicate with each other," Hunting said.
There are other chemicals that are likely to change the electric field. He said that it was likely that other chemicals would have the same effect.
He said that the spray on of thefertilizer is an important factor. They would have interacted with the flowers differently if they had been added to the soil.
Information about how chemicals change how bees spot flowers is important.
About 1/3 of the world's crops are pollinated by bees. According to the UN's Food and Agriculture administration, two-thirds of fruits and seeds crops rely on bees.
berries, apples, almonds, cucumbers, and peppers are some of the healthiest fruits and vegetables in the world.
The original article was published by Business Insider.
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