Are the bees also addicted to caffeine and nicotine?

A study conducted at the University of Haifa found that bees prefer nectar with a small concentration of caffeine and nicotine over nectar without these substances. "It is possible that this is an evolutionary development designed to cause the bee's addiction," said the researchers

Bees prefer nectar with small concentrations of nicotine and caffeine over nectar without these substances - according to a study conducted at the University of Haifa. "It is possible that this is an evolutionary development intended, just like in humans, to cause the bee's addiction," noted Prof. Ado Yitzhaki, one of the authors of the study.

While most of the material from which flower nectar is made is made of sugars, whose purpose is to provide energy to the potential pollinators, there are types of flowers whose nectar also contains amounts of substances known to be toxic such as caffeine and nicotine. In the current study, the group of researchers in the Department of Environmental Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Science-Biology Teaching of the University of Haifa in Oranim, led by Prof. Itzhaki together with Prof. Gideon Naaman, Prof. Moshe Inbar and Dr. Natrigin Singervalen, asked to check whether these substances also "attract" the bees or A product that is not necessarily related to this purpose.

Nicotine occurs in nature in the nectar of flowers in concentrations of up to 2.5 milligrams per liter, mainly in various types of tobacco. Caffeine usually appears in nature in concentrations of 11-17.5 milligrams per liter, mainly in citrus fruits, but in grapefruit flower nectar it appears in a much higher concentration of 94.2 milligrams per liter. To test whether the bees prefer nectar containing caffeine and nicotine, the researchers allowed the bees to choose between artificial nectar that contained sugar at the concentration found in flowers in nature and different concentrations of caffeine and nicotine versus "clean" nectar that contained only sugar. The concentrations of the substances ranged from the natural concentrations to much higher concentrations.

The findings show that bees clearly prefer nectar that contains nicotine and caffeine. The concentration of nicotine preferred by the bees was 1 milligram per liter, similar to its concentration in nature. As the concentration exceeded this concentration, they clearly preferred "clean" nectar. The bees clearly preferred nectar that contained 100 milligrams per liter of caffeine, but beyond this concentration they clearly preferred "clean" nectar.

According to the researchers, it is difficult to determine with certainty whether the addictive substances in the nectar developed during evolution to optimize the pollination process, but it can be assumed based on the findings that the plants identified during natural selection were the ones that developed "correct" concentrations of these addictive substances so that they would attract the bees and not repel them , which obviously gives them a big advantage over other plants.

They even emphasized that the current experiment proved a preference and not an addiction, and now they intend to test whether the bees are indeed addicted to nicotine and caffeine.