Fact of the Week: Bee Best?

Bees are used for pollination. Except that some bees engage in nectar robbing. That usually means making a hole in the base of the petal to get the nectar. To be fair, some flowers do have rather unique pollination methods which the bees have to rob it or go hungry. Once there is a hole, other insects will keep using the shortcut. 

This reduces the nectar in the flower which then requires the actual pollinator to fly to even more flowers. Or just avoid the robbed flowers. (It is perfectly understandable. I do not want to go to a bank with a hole in its vault.) 

The nectar robbers usually have shorter tongues but stronger mandibles. 

Nectar robbing is a short term solution as the plant needs to reproduce. Less pollination means less future flowers. Nectar robbing can be a learned behavior. 

The is an arms race. The plant can grow thicker plant parts. Or produce poison. Which has a risk of poisoning the pollinators. And apparently, some bees could be using the poison as medication.