Electric fields, flowers, and bees.

Both bees and flowers have electric fields that guide behaviour.

Rubbing two different materials together causes electrons to be transferred from one object to another, making one positive and one negative.  It's why you rub a balloon on your hair.  Those materials don't have to be solids either; air passing across surfaces will also transfer electrons.  Flying insects, by the sheer act of beating their wings against the air, develop an electric charge.  Not the kind of charge you find in a bug-zapper (imagine a fly suddenly popping in the air - a new form of spontaneous combustion!).  It turns out the charge is positive, that is electrons leave the insect.

Flowers, on the other hand, develop small negative charges.  The charge occurs because of a process called induction.  The air has a positive charge due to the action of the sun (radiation) and wind (friction).  The positively charged air causes electrons to travel up the plant and onto the distant flowers.  They become negatively charged.  This charge is more noticeable during sunny, dry weather as the electrons are less easily dissipated (think how a VandeGraff generator works better on sunny, dry days than on cloudy, wet days).  

Along comes a positively charged bee and there is an electrostatic attraction between the flower and the bee, which the insect can detect.  When it lands on the flower, some of the charge is mitigated (electrons travel from the plant onto the bee making the flower either neutral or slightly positively charged).  Another interesting thing is that pollen granules will actively jump onto the bee's body, the negative pollen grains are attracted to the positive charges on the insect.

When the insect leaves the flower, the bloom now has a reduced electric field because of the recent interaction.  Another bee coming along will discover that the flower has little charge and leave it alone;  there is no or little nectar present.  After a little while, the plant replaces the nectar, regains its negative charge, and awaits a visit from another bee.

Isn't nature amazing?

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com

Note:  you can read about how I took this photograph by visiting this blog.

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