Meeting Abstract
Individual bees often specialize on one flower, flower constancy, while bypassing equally rewarding flowers. To better understand flower constancy behavior, we compared flower color choices by honey bee (Apis mellifera) and Megachile rotundata foragers in North Central Pennsylvania. Our goal was to determine (1) if innate flower color choice differs between a solitary bee and the eusocial honey bee, (2) if initial flower color choice is impacted by flower frequency, and (3) if flower constancy corresponds to their innate flower color choice. We observed naïve and experienced bees as they visited 6 x 6 Cartesian grids with frequencies of blue (B) and yellow (Y) artificial flowers of 50 B/ 50 Y, 75 B/ 25 Y and 25 B/ 75 Y. Initial flower color choice by individual naïve bees was used to determine innate flower color choice, while the first 10 visits to artificial flowers were used as a measure of flower constancy. We observed 103 initial visits from naïve A. mellifera foragers, and 578 visits from 72 experienced A. mellifera foragers. Both experienced and naïve foragers preferred blue flowers, with blue preference being more pronounced in experienced foragers than naïve foragers. Blue flowers were visited at a higher proportion than their frequency on the Cartesian grids in all three treatments, with increased visitation to yellow flowers in the 25 B / 75 Y treatment. M. rotundata also preferred blue artificial flowers. Our study corroborates the preference for blue flowers by naïve and experienced bees, for both A. mellifera and M. rotundata reported in earlier studies. Our results also indicate that individual honeybees adapt foraging behavior to changes in flower color frequency, consistent with optimal foraging strategy.
