The Bee Hunter’s Diaries
Chapter 3. Do you know how a bee smells?
Do you know how a bee smells? This is a weird question, but do you know? When I am collecting bees I smell this lemony aroma. This scent goes through the net, it is strong. Some studies say that these smells are a way bees communicate and send an alert of danger to other bees or in the case of honey bees it can be a signal to find their way home.
But bees like flowers, and as you know flowers smell different. In many cases, the bees can pick up the perfumes from flowers involuntarily. For example, if the bee collects pollen from lavender, this bee will smell like lavender. At the OKC Zoo, the little carpenter bees Ceratina spp that collect pollen from the roses smell like roses. The digger bees Anthophoras collect pollen from lavender, salvia, and mint, and even the males that do not collect pollen but drink nectar from these plants become perfumed.
Love is in the air.
I mentioned that the bees become perfumed involuntarily, but there is a case where bees actively collect perfumes. The males of the orchid bees Euglossa spp collect perfumes from the orchid flowers, these bees have a specialized structure at the legs to carry these perfumes. In this case, the males use these perfumes to attract females.