Inexperienced bumble bees are poor at securely landing regardless of flower orientation or presence of labellum

Abstract

The mutualism between bees and flowers creates strong selection on both the structure of the flower and behavior of the bee to maximize pollination and foraging success, respectively. Previous research has primarily assessed the costs of foraging by quantifying the time and accuracy of search, and handling time of the flower. However, there is little attention given to the actual success of landing, and it is often not explicitly stated whether failed landing attempts are taken into consideration. We show here that landing attempts often are unsuccessful, especially in inexperienced bees. Orientation of artificial flowers in our experiment neither influenced the preference nor landing success of a naive bumble bee forager. The presence of a labellum, often considered to serve as a landing platform, also did not influence landing success, indicating that it may mostly play a role in flower recognition or act as a nectar guide. Failed landing attempts may thus play an under-recognized role in the foraging efficiency and behavior of bees, and learning may be key in individual bee landing efficiency, not just flower recognition. Further research should aim to quantify the costs of landing failures and consider the role of experience in individual bee landing success.