Study
Detection and learning of floral electric fields by bumblebees
Clarke, Dominic; Whitney, Heather; Sutton, Gregory; Robert, Daniel
Science, 2013
Artificial flowers were given weak electric fields resembling those of real blooms. Bees were tested on whether they could learn to associate a field pattern with a reward, with the fields switched off in control conditions.
- Studied in
- Bombus terrestris
- Sample size
- foraging bumblebees across multiple colonies
Bumblebees learned to discriminate flowers by their electric field alone, and combined that information with colour to improve accuracy. Landing also measurably changed a flower's field, which could signal a recent visit.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Floral electric fields are a genuine information channel between flowers and pollinators.
How NatureHQ reads it
An entire sensory channel that nobody had looked for. The finding is about buff-tailed bumblebees, not "bees" as a whole, and the follow-up question — how the field is detected — was answered separately by work on body hairs. Worth noting that this is detection of a static field, not the electroreception of sharks and rays, which works differently.
- Laboratory conditions with artificial flowers.
- One bumblebee species; generalisation to other pollinators is untested here.
- Field strengths in the wild vary with humidity and wind.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: American Association for the Advancement of SciencePublished in Science or Science Advances (AAAS).
doi.org/10.1126/science.1230883
This reference was resolved automatically against Crossref and OpenAlex on 2026-08-11.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-09.