Just like humans, buzzy pollinators tend to be a bit “irrational” when they forage in meadows and come across many different flowers at once.
In a recent study, scientists found that bumblebees didn’t necessarily pick the flowers with the most accessible and highest quality of nectar and pollen. Instead, they often visited certain blooms based on flowers they’d recently visited and what the other options were.
For example, the team put less sugary flowers next to flowers with high and intermediate sugar concentrations and found that the presence of the “low-reward” flower made the medium one appear relatively better. “Humans are also very sensitive to the context of their choice. For example, people are more likely to pay a higher price for a television when a smaller, more expensive one is also available,” Claire Therese Hemingway, the lead study author, writes for The Conversation.
Zooming out, she explained that this insight could be used strategically to help direct bees and boost pollination: “Just as stores stock shelves to present unattractive options alongside attractive ones, farmers could plant certain flower species in or near crop plants to increase visitation to the target crops.”