Caffeine buzz keeps bees coming back for more

Caffeine has been the drug of choice for those wanting to increase their productivity, and humans aren't the only ones that have caught on to this idea — plants guarantee their own increased productivity by taking advantage of caffeine's buzz to keep bees coming back again and again.

Although caffeine is a natural pesticide due to its toxic effects at higher concentrations, a new study shows that plants such as the coffee plant, the tea bush, and even Citrus plants, have small amounts of caffeine in their nectar. For some plants, the amount of caffeine is fairly low, but some can have the equivalent to a normal cup of coffee (if there was a bee-sized cup of coffee). These (relatively) small amounts, rather than killing the bees, served to help the bees remember where they got that jolt, and thus return to the same plant again and again.

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The study researchers took this idea into the laboratory and mixed up two concoctions — one with just sugar, and one with sugar and caffeine. They then used individual bees that had learned to expect a sugary treat when they were exposed to a specific floral scent, and fed them either the sugar solution or the sugar-caffeine solution.

Testing their memory, the scientists exposed the bees to the floral scent again after a day, and found that the bees that had the caffeine solution were three times more likely to extend their feeding tube, in anticipation of getting their treat. Exposing them again after 72 hours showed that those who'd gotten the caffeine kick were still twice as likely to expect the treat.

So, it seems that bees experience the same boost that people experience in converting short-term memory to long-term memory due to caffeine's stimulant effects, therefore remembering those plants that spike their nectar with caffeine longer, and thus returning to them more often.

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Of course, this is simply a case of natural selection, where those plants that happened to develop to have caffeine in their nectar attracted bees more often and thus survived better than similar plants that lacked the caffeine. However, if I can be afforded an anthropomorphic moment — considering how many managers keep a free supply of coffee in the office to keep workers focused and productive, that's pretty ingenious on the part of the plants.

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