The relationship between bees and flowers is so very complex. While bees are creatures made with such a detailed eye, seemingly defying gravity during flight, they have an important role to play when it comes to pollinating. Animal pollinators, such as bees, detect and select flowers by their colors, shapes, markings, fragrance, and even temperature. The sheer amount of animal pollinators, and the ways in which they pollinate, is so incredibly vast, some even beyond our understanding. Bees are unique. “They carry out fewer total flower visits than any other pollinator does, yet they are responsible for about half of all crop pollination!” In the following pages, I will firstly discuss how bees fly and the dynamics behind their ability to carry all that heavy pollen. Then I will discuss an aspect of plant-pollinator interactions that has received very little representation; the electrostatic forces between bees and flowers. I will describe how and why these electric fields exist, the way in which bees detect weak electrostatic forces during flight, and finally the function of these forces on pollen transfer.
