Bees go wild over purple flowers


	Bees go wild over purple flowers

pokkets

6-25-2007 3:18 AM

755 views

tags:

purple, flower, bee, nectar, colour, innate

pokkets says:

Might explain why there are no black tulips

2 Comments |

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6-25-2007 4:10 AM

debbyski

I always wondered why bumblebees seemed attracted to the purple flowers.

6-26-2007 12:31 AM

allenmarkowski

Just a thought but the color is also vibrationally higher which means more energy.

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://www.clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/532b20cf-51ea-47fa-9c3c-e8baf2659abc/D611E437-C1EC-456E-9022-90E0FB49041F/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1961099.htm" href="http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1961099.htm" style="font-size: 11px;">www.abc.net.au</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1961099.htm"><DIV align="left" class="byline">Larry O'Hanlon</DIV></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1961099.htm"><DIV>Bumblebees really, really like purple and now we know why. Experiments show that their inborn colour preference gives them a good start in life. </DIV></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1961099.htm"><div align="center"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/www.abc.net.au/img/07A80104-FF05-4AB8-9ADA-3CA0FD8460C3" alt="bumblebee" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1961099.htm"><DIV>"The world's a bit of a tough place for a naive bee," says Dr Adrian Dyer, a research in how animals perceive colour from <A target="_blank" href="http://www.latrobe.edu.au/">La Trobe University</A> in Australia. "They have to go out and find the goodies."</DIV></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1961099.htm"><DIV>Any bee that innately prefers the colour of flowers with the highest amounts of nectar will probably have a better chance of surviving its first few days in the world and then pass on that trait to its own offspring.</DIV></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1961099.htm"><DIV>Dr Nigel Raine and Professor Lars Chittka at <A target="_blank" href="http://www.qmul.ac.uk/">Queen Mary</A>, <A target="_blank" href="http://www.lon.ac.uk">University of London</A> found that there is a clear advantage to bees that start out life primed for purple.</DIV></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1961099.htm">"The purple flowers in that area near Würzburg are more rewarding,"</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1961099.htm">By rewarding, he means they are unusually nectar-rich. Similar colour preferences are found, but not previously explained, in several other bumblebee species from Asia, Europe and North America</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/D611E437-C1EC-456E-9022-90E0FB49041F/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>