I found this article on Bumblebees interesting and thought I might share it. The researchers here describe a finding of Bumblebees accelerating flower production, and therefore pollen, in certain plants by damaging the leaves.
The first link is to the original paper in Science but only the abstract as a login is required - I don’t have access, you also may not. The second link is to an interpretation in LiveScience of the original paper .
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Very curious and interesting!
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When I read this my first thought was “I should try snipping the edges of my tomato leaves…” Though, they did say their own efforts weren’t as successful as the bees’.
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Agreed. To think that this instinctual behavior (I would not think it would be passed on by queens - who knows (yet)) would yield future results that would seem to be abstract.
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Thanks for sharing. I had to give up reading the Live Science article on my mobile because of all the banners and popups, but there’s a more friendly version here:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/05/bumblebees-bite-plants-flower-early/
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Or if neither of those work you can try this Scientific American link here: Scientific American: Bumblebees Bite Plants to Force Them to Flower (Seriously).
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bumblebees-bite-plants-to-force-them-to-flower-seriously/
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