Join host Linden Kemkaran as she speaks to Phil Stevenson, Professor of Plant Chemistry at the Natural Resources Institute, and Head of the Chemical Ecology Research Group at the University of Greenwich.

Phil describes how he and his team wondered, if humans’ performance and memory can be enhanced by caffeine, could the stimulant have the same effect on bees? 

By using an experiment called ‘conditioned learning’ (aka Pavlov’s dogs) Professor Stevenson provided bees with a food reward of liquid sugar while he wafted a plume of odour across their antennae so that they associated that smell with good food. Using caffeine helped this process and the bees made the association more quickly.

When the bees went out foraging the next day, they were much more able to remember a specific cue and a route that enabled them to gather good food sources, or nectar. Memory is a very important part of success for pollinating insects and the caffeine enabled the bees to remember things for much longer.

 Fun Fact: Caffeine is a fairly simple chemical that has evolved as a naturally occurring ‘defence’ chemical in many different crops, not just tea and coffee, but in legumes, citrus and ivy plants protecting them from insect herbivores. In high concentration it is bitter and sometimes toxic, but in low concentration in the nectar it is hardly noticeable, and it serves as an attractant and an aide memoir for pollinators.