Bees Bite Plants

Did you know… that bumblebees force plants to flower by biting their leaves. This discovery may help improve agriculture.

When common European bumblebees and their larvae emerge in spring, pollen is all they eat. Scientists recently found that if plants aren’t flowering, the bees bite them, and those incisions somehow speed the arrival of pollen-laden blooms. When scientists tried to mimic the marks, the plants bloomed earlier, but not as early as they did for bees.

Source: National Geographic