It's a good thing we went to the library today. We found an amazing book about bees (thank you, National Geographic!) and learned that bees do NOT make honey from pollen. They make honey from nectar, which they sip with their tongues. I'm not sure why they pick up pollen with their feet, but my guess is that it is simply for pollinating the flowers.
Obviously I'd better start studying.
1 comment:
Nature is full of neat relationships like this. It really is a web.
Bees don't benefit directly from pollen, but the flowers require bees (and other arthropods or birds like hummingbirds) to spread the pollen so they can reproduce sexually and be more genetically fit. Indirectly, this means the bees (and other pollinators) benefit because the flowers are designed to attract bees and other pollinators.
And we benefit, too, because one of the common ways that the flowers attract pollinators is by being colorful! Although insects apparently can see a wider spectrum than us, and so we miss out on some of the beauty: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-473897/A-bees-eye-view-How-insects-flowers-differently-us.html.
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