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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
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Mon, 28 Feb 2011 22:39:18 -0500
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>>I wonder if neonicitids being similar to nicotine make the bees 
>>prefer poor pollens such as corn in the past some work showed
>>that bees prefer sugar laced with cocaine.

>Eric, bees also prefer syrup laced with nicotine!  But foragers don't
>eat pollen, so unlikely.

How do bees decide what pollen to collect?  Do they not sense it and
make a decision?  After all, the pollen foragers, according to my 
understanding, do not have to find bees to receive their loads.  
How do they decide what to gather?  We know that various organisms,
including humans at the end of shift are attracted to toxic substances, 
so why not bees?

If the foragers do make the decisions about what pollen to collect -- and
we know they don't always make wise choices -- could chemicals associated
with the pollen not influence that decision, even if they do not consume it?

I seem to recall that Justin Schmidt's work showed that the bees choices 
in pollens do not seem to relate to the nutritional value as much as to 
other factors like texture and size.

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