I have always wondered about how bees decide what source of pollen to work.  [It is just the abundance and the protein content thereof?]  At any one time, one can bees with pollen of different colors (sources) coming into the hive so they are certainly picking more than one source.

This study on birds concluded that birds select the fruit that they eat based on, among other reasons, the antioxidant level of the fruit.  The birds instinctively preferred the fruit with the higher antioxidants: 

www.biologie.uni-freiburg.de/data/bio1/schaefer/pdf/catoni-funct.pdf

I wonder if the same is true of bees and the pollen they pick.  Bee pollen is relatively high in antioxidants:

http://sa.agr.hr/2008pdf/sa2008_0605.pdf

Anybody know more on this?

Waldemar

(PS.  Can't to correlations with humans since humans pick fast foods. We seem to have lost the trait for instinctively picking the healthiest food. ;-))

 

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