We humans enjoy coffee and tea, to give our brains a caffeine boost. And bees sometimes sip nectar that naturally contains caffeine, which seems to enhance their memory. Now a study suggests that bees enjoy another familiar drug produced by plants: nicotine.

我们人类享受咖啡和茶，为我们的大脑提供咖啡因。蜜蜂有时会啜饮天然含有咖啡因的花蜜，这似乎可以增强他们的记忆力。现在一项研究表明，蜜蜂喜欢植物产生的另一种熟悉的药物：尼古丁。

"As it turns out, not just in humans, but even the bees seem to have difficulties quitting." Lars Chittka, a professor of behavioral and sensory ecology at Queen Mary University of London. 
“事实证明，不仅仅是在人类身上，甚至蜜蜂似乎也很难戒烟。” Lars Chittka，伦敦玛丽女王大学行为与感官生态学教授。

Chittka and his colleagues studied bumblebees as they visited fake flowers that contained varying levels of nicotine. Unnaturally high nicotine concentrations deterred the bees. But at real-world levels, the drug attracted bees. And they even learned a flower's color faster, if that flower offered a nicotine fix.
Chittka和他的同事研究了大黄蜂，因为他们参观了含有不同尼古丁含量的假花。不自然的高尼古丁浓度阻止了蜜蜂。但在现实世界中，这种药物吸引了蜜蜂。如果那朵花提供了尼古丁修复，他们甚至可以更快地学会花的颜色。

Sometimes bees paid a steep price for this preference. "They returned actually to flowers that had previously sold them nicotine, so to speak, even if these flowers no longer contained nectar." 
有时蜜蜂为这种偏好付出了惨重的代价。 “他们实际上回到以前卖过尼古丁的鲜花，可以这么说，即使这些鲜花不再含有花蜜。”

Which might give nicotine-pushing plants, like tobacco, an edge. "It provides these plant species with an unfair advantage over competing plants, because they can retain the faithful services of pollinators, even if they're offering suboptimal nectar in this case." 
这可能会给像烟草这样的尼古丁推动植物带来优势。 “它为这些植物物种提供了比竞争植物更不公平的优势，因为它们可以保留传粉媒介的忠实服务，即使它们在这种情况下提供次优的花蜜。”

The results are in the journal Scientific Reports. [D. Baracchi et al., Nicotine in floral nectar pharmacologically influences bumblebee learning of floral features]
结果发表在科学报告期刊上。 [D. Baracchi等，花蜜中的尼古丁药理学影响大黄蜂学习花卉特征]

And if caffeine and nicotine have these effects on bees? Perhaps natural floral pharmacies stock other drugs too—that enhance pollination, and give bees a buzz.
如果咖啡因和尼古丁对蜜蜂有这些影响吗？也许天然花卉药店也会储存其他药物，以增加授粉，并给蜜蜂带来嗡嗡声。

—Christopher Intagliata
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]