ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2023
Honey bees switch mechanisms to drink deep nectar efficiently.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Integrated Ultrastructural and Transcriptomic Analysis of the Proboscis inAnimals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Bioinspired wettability boundary stabilizes water sloshing.Science advances · 2025Article
- Review on role of honey in disease prevention and treatment through modulation of biological activities.Open life sciences · 2025Review
- Upper bill bending as an adaptation for nectar feeding in hummingbirds.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
The feeding mechanisms of animals constrain the spectrum of resources that they can exploit profitably. For floral nectar eaters, both corolla depth and nectar properties have marked influence on foraging choices. We report the multiple strategies used by honey bees to efficiently extract nectar at the range of sugar concentrations and corolla depths they face in nature. Honey bees can collect nectar by dipping their hairy tongues or capillary loading when lapping it, or they can attach the tongue to the wall of long corollas and directly suck the nectar along the tongue sides. The honey bee feeding apparatus is unveiled as a multifunctional tool that can switch between lapping and sucking nectar according to the instantaneous ingesting efficiency, which is determined by the interplay of nectar-mouth distance and sugar concentration. These versatile feeding mechanisms allow honey bees to extract nectar efficiently from a wider range of floral resources than previously appreciated and endow them with remarkable adaptability to diverse foraging environments.
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