a Mr Oliver snip..
And in the late summer and fall, certain rust fungi produce spores, and
trick pollinators (via color and sugar) to gather them.
my comments....
we see the same thing here pretty much in the same context with cypress mulch (ground up cypress wood) which folks buy to cover flower beds. at some point in the early summer season when pollen and nectar sources become scarce they will mob bags of cypress mulch and drag this back to their hives. it has a nice smell but I would guess zero nutritional value.
I suspect this says something about folks contention that the honeybee knows what is best for them in regards to food resources. In the world of human and animal nutrition this concept is call 'nutritional intelligence' which at least for most species is though to be non existent.
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