Honeybees have an impressive ability to learn and memorize new smells and three quarters of the world’s food crops rely on bees for pollination. Scientist have found that traffic fumes make the scent of oilseed rape flowers unrecognizable to honeybees and could be detrimental to pollinator activity and be a contributing factor to the decline of honeybee numbers in recent years. In the study bees were strapped down and taught to associate the scent of oilseed rape flowers with food in the form of sugar solutions. Once the bees learned the new smell, when the scent was presented without pollutants the bees recognized it 98% – 99% of the time. Once levels of diesel exhaust matching those at roadside were mixed with the scent, the bee’s recognition rate fell to 30%. To read more about the study:
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