Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D.Bumblebees are able to eat all kinds of stuff (they’re “generalist foragers”) and are often faced with lots of options for food.
@felicity_muth is working to understand how they choose which spots to visit.
She’s sharing her work at #SICB2023
What’s a good reward for a bee? Normally 30% sucrose (a sugar) is good! But if you up it to 50% then go back to 30 they don’t want 30 anymore because, hey, they know they can get 50!
In humans, if you tell us that a wine is nice, we’ll think it tastes better.
Is the “label” affecting bees in a similar way?
They get used to a certain look of flower being very delicious and then like that, regardless of how much sugar is really there?
If you go wine shopping & see a new wine with a cool label (like maybe w/ a squid on it). You might buy it bc trying new things is fun!
When bumblebees find a new flower, they have no prior expectations, so they want to try it out. Even if the sugar is low, they’ll drink it!
Cool talk!