Revealing photos show nectar-grubbing honey bees piercing flowers

Inside: Although most beekeepers say that honey bees cannot bore holes into flowers, others say they have seen honey bees excavate both petals and fruit skins. Below are some determined honey bees with piercing on their minds.

Conventional wisdom tells us that honey bees cannot pierce flower petals. While some other species happily drill holes through petals to reach the rich nectaries, honey bees are usually not charged with that crime. Instead, the outlaw behavior is ascribed to bumble bees, carpenter bees, some solitary wasps, ants, and beetles.

Drilling through the outside of a flower to reach the nectaries is called nectar robbing. It is considered “criminal” because the insect steals the nectar but provides nothing in return.

Nectar is designed to attract pollinators

Plants secrete nectar to attract pollinators, hoping they will transfer pollen from plant to plant as they sip the sweet liquid. The transfer of pollen from the male part of one flower to the female part of another flower is called cross-pollination. Because transferring genetic material is vital to flowering plants, they expend lots of energy attracting pollinators to do the work.

Things that plants make to attract pollinators include luscious smells, colorful flowers, enticing oils, and of course succulent nectar. All the enticements are energy-expensive to produce, but it’s all worthwhile if the plant gets proper pollination in return. It’s the quid pro quo of the plant world.

Nectar-stealing is like smash-and-grab

When a pollinator breaks into the backside of a flower and steals the goods, it bypasses the reproductive parts of the plant and never touches the pollen. Like a thief breaking into a store, the pollinator arrives through the backdoor and takes things without paying.

Bees will rob nectar if they can’t easily reach it. For example, short-tongued bees often cannot reach the nectar at the bottom of a long, tube-shaped flower. They know it’s there, but their tongues may be too short or their bodies too big to reach it.

So instead of struggling into a small space, they go to the outside of the flower and bore into the base. Once the bee reaches the goods, she guzzles it with her tongue.

Honey bees let other bees drill holes

We assume honey bees don’t pierce holes in flowers because their mandibles have rounded ends, more spoon-shaped than pointy. So when a honey bee robs nectar, it usually uses a hole that some other creature has conveniently created. Sometimes, you can see holes left by bumbles or beetles, appearing like brown-edged slits, much like damaged fruit.

And speaking of fruit, you can also find ripe fruits with holes punctured by wasps or other insects. Honey bees will readily use these openings to slurp fruit juice, especially in the fall when nectar-laden flowers are rare.

Questioning the conventional wisdom

Over the many years I’ve been writing about bees, many people have written to me swearing they have seen honey bees puncture both fruits and flowers. It seems that, given enough persistence, a bee can use its rounded mandibles and strong tongue to penetrate skins and petals.

I frequently point out the damage a colony can do to woodenware, chewing away paint and carving wood into the shape they prefer. In my opinion, any creature that can carve wood with its mouthparts could rend a petal or peel, if that’s what it wanted to do.

Stitching through squash petals

Last week, Wendy Frith of Bermuda, sent photographs she took of honey bees in her squash blossoms. Although it is difficult to say exactly what the bees were searching for, the photos show the tongue entering one side of a petal and coming out the other.

Wendy wrote [slightly edited]:

“I think the bee, itself, was creating the holes in the squash flower (unless it was simply enlarging minute ones for some reason). It would spend a while with each one. First, just a single pinpoint of its tongue tip would appear, and then with a sewing machine action, it would protrude more with every thrust until the hole was bigger and the tongue fully extended.

“I actually wondered a few things at the time: whether the bee was reading the crenelated surface of the squash flower as possible entranceways to nectar wells (sorry, there must be a term); if the petal walls of the flower produce nectar (I should try licking them, perhaps?); and — very far fetched — if it was possibly cleaning its tongue of some kind of irritating residue, using the petals as towels. But an hour of cleaning…?”

Maybe honey bees enjoy piercing flowers

I, too, wondered if squash petals harbor some amount of nectar. Nectaries are usually at the base of the flower, but with these bees piercing the edges of petals, I wondered if some of the sweetness flows through the veins of the petals. I do know that squash plants are monoecious, meaning both male and female flowers appear on one plant, and both types produce copious amounts of nectar.

Honey bees nectar robbing hibiscus

Wendy also included some photos of honey bees working hibiscus flowers. In the first photo, you can see a wound at the base of a flower where nectar is leaking out. Next to it, a honey bee has extended her tongue into another hole. My guess is something else made the hole, but I don’t know for sure.

In the last photo, two honey bees are mulling over the problem. I imagine they can smell the nectar and are devising a way to get it.

Have you ever seen honey bees piercing flowers?

Tell us what you think. If you’ve ever seen a honey bee behaving like a sewing machine, stitching the edge of a petal, please let us know! Or if you have seen bees tearing open fruit or petals, tell us about it. Wendy and I and many others are eager to learn about these obscure behaviors.

Rusty
Honey Bee Suite

Special thanks to Wendy Frith for the great photos and keen observations. Much appreciated!

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Did you know honey bees can bite? Their strong mandibles can deliver quite a pinch.