Researchers on a leisure-time hiking trip have discovered how honeybees pilfer pollen from their bumblebee peers.
Milan-based experts on the environment Tiziano Londei and Giuliana Marzi went to Monte Antola, a peak in the Ligurian Apennines, northern Italy, in the summer of 2019.
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They saw by accident how western honeybees (Apis mellifera) continuously nicked pollen, which is essential nutrition for insects, from red-tailed bumblebees (Bombus lapidarius).
While honeybees struggle to pick up pollen from woolly thistles, the powdery substance gets stuck on bumblebees’ hairy bodies, Science News reports.
Tiziano and Giuliana said: “We observed this behaviour, previously studied only in North America and as a rare occurrence, on each of the three visits, one per year, we made to the same site in Italy.”
Red-tailed bumblebees appear in summer. They can be found all over Europe. The social insects do not shy away from foraging for nectar and pollen at high altitudes.
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