By Kim Brown

As gardeners we already know plants are amazing. They can have smells that are intoxicating, beautiful colors and patterns that mesmerize us, and beneficial properties that can help fight illness. Insects like beetles, honey bees, butterflies, and many more also find them attractive and beneficial, but how does pollen get from the flower to the insect and vice versa? One way will make your hair stand on end.

When insects fly, the beating of their wings builds up a positive charge. Flowers, on the other hand, being grounded to the earth have a negative charge. The positively charged insects can feel the negative charge of the flowers and are attracted to them. The stronger the negative charge the stronger the attraction for the insect. Have you ever shuffled across the carpet and then touched someone? Shocking, right? You built up a charge through friction (called the triboelectric effect) when you walked, just like a bumblebee (butterfly or moth, etc.) when it flies, then it discharged when you got really close to something. When a positively charged bumblebee approaches a negatively charged flower full of pollen, the pollen jumps from the negative anther of the flower to the positive bee and gets trapped in the hairs on the bee with electrostatic effect (Clarke, 2017; Greggers, 2013). As more and more insects visit the flower the negative charge of the flower decreases and makes the flower less attractive to other insects. This can also work the other way around. As the insect visits other flowers the pollen is transferred from the positive insect to the negative stigma, thus pollinating or cross pollinating those flowers (Hardin, 1976).  

So, the next time you see a butterfly or fuzzy bumblebee covered in pollen, remember it’s because of their positive outlook on life.  

Photo Credits: All photos courtesy of the author

References

Clarke, D., Erica Morley, & Daniel Robert. 2017. The bee, the flower, and the electric field: Electric ecology and aerial electroreception. The Journal of Comparative Physiology, 203:737-748

Greggers, U., et. al. 2013. Reception and learning of electric fields in bees. Proceedings of The Royal Society B, 280. 

Hardin, G.B. 1976. Better charge, better pollination: Electrical charges carried by honeybees. Agricultural Research, 25(6): 15

Kim Brown has turned her ten year beekeeping obsession into a business with Americana Farm Apiary. WHen she is not hanging out with her bees, you can find her processing and bottling honey, making goat’s milk-and-honey artisan soap, working in her herb and flower gardens, volunteering with the Pennsylvania Heartland Herb Society or the Penn State Master Gardener’s Program, or making things in her art studio. Her current project is a drivable tank made out of cardboard for her grandson and her (if he will share). Find Kim and her products at www.americanafarm.com