Hugo Buzz: Male bees wear ‘perfume’ of different flowers to attract their mates, research shows
- Orchid bees have more mating success if they wear a ‘perfume’
- They collect scents and store them in special hind leg ‘pockets’
For some women, the smell of a nice aftershave can make a man seem infinitely more attractive.
And it seems the same is true for bees, according to new research.
Scientists have found that a certain type of bee, found in countries like Costa Rica and Brazil, has more mating success when they wear a “perfume.”
They collect a mixture of scents from various sources and store it in special hind leg pouches before using it to seduce a mate.
Researchers at the Ruhr-Universitat Bochum in Germany conducted an experiment in which they provided some male orchid bees with scents from different flowers, while others were left untreated.
Scientists have found that a certain type of bee, found in countries like Costa Rica and Brazil, has more mating success when they wear a ‘perfume’
They found that the “scented” bees mated with more females and produced more offspring than their untreated counterparts.
In the journal Current Biology, the researchers write: ‘Our results show that male-acquired perfumes are sexual signals that stimulate females to mate.
“These results provide the first direct evidence that male perfume influences the mating preference of female orchid bees.”
Previous observations have shown that female bees approach males from the wind, indicating that scent may be a driver for their sexual advances.
During this study, the researchers noticed one instance where the female bee flew back and forth between two bees before finally making a choice to mate with the one that had a perfume.
“Because perfume … is scarce and unpredictable in natural habitats, the process of making perfume is certainly costly for male orchid bees,” the researchers said.
“This offers perfumes the opportunity to develop into honest indicators of survival, foraging success, cognitive ability or competitive strength.”
Females who respond to the perfume actually select males who express themselves as “fit,” she added.
In the wild, these bees collect volatiles – the building blocks of perfumes – from a variety of sources, including flowers, fruits, resin, sap, mushrooms, and even feces.
After storing them in ‘pouches’ on their hind legs, they release the scent by repeatedly crossing their legs and spraying it into the air using vibrations of their wings.
Researchers found that the ‘scented’ bees mated with more females and sired more offspring than their untreated counterparts