Drug Dealer Flowers Make Bees Addicts

See that pretty little flower all red and yellow on yonder plant? It may not look much like your neighborhood drug dealer, but as far as the local bees in the area are concerned, that flower is the one to go to  for their daily fix. Neuro-biologists at Newcastle University in the UK have conducted a science experiment whose results show that flowers offer nectar-with-a-kick to bees.

This enables the bees to remember the flowers better and the bee is far more likely to sip from this flower again, increasing the chances of pollination for the plant. Earlier they believed that the flowers developed the mild toxin to defend themselves against predators, but the poison angle did not play out too well, as the amount of alkaloids produced were not enough of a deterrent to predators.

By addicting the bees to the nectar, the flowers act just like a drug dealer would. They even manage to produce the dosage just right. It is enough to give the bee a kick and not enough to act as a nerve stimulant to the plant itself. So by using the nectar as bait the flowers manage to increase their chances of survival as per this scientific experiment.