<\/p>
Nectar is a plant\u2019s way of bribing insects and other animals to pollinate it or protect it against herbivores. The sugar-rich fluid is indeed packed with energy, but it also contains other much-sought-after compounds.<\/p>\n
The caffeine contained in citrus tree nectar boosts honeybees<\/a><\/strong>\u2019 memories, for instance, making the insects more likely to visit similar flowers. And earlier this year several nectar components were found to reduce gut parasite load in bumblebees<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Intriguingly, a chemical component of rhododendron nectar is actually toxic to honeybees but not bumblebees, perhaps because it pays for the plants to encourage only certain, specialist pollinators.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Main image \u00a9 Getty Images<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n By Stuart Blackman Published: Monday, 16 January 2023 at 12:00 am Nectar is a plant\u2019s way of bribing insects and other animals to pollinate it or protect it against herbivores. The sugar-rich fluid is indeed packed with energy, but it also contains other much-sought-after compounds. The caffeine contained in citrus tree nectar boosts honeybees\u2019 memories, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":24168,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"< 1"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/what-is-nectar.jpg",2121,1414,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/what-is-nectar-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/what-is-nectar-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/what-is-nectar-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/what-is-nectar-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/what-is-nectar-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2023\/01\/what-is-nectar-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Stuart Blackman Published: Monday, 16 January 2023 at 12:00 am Nectar is a plant\u2019s way of bribing insects and other animals to pollinate it or protect it against herbivores. The sugar-rich fluid is indeed packed with energy, but it also contains other much-sought-after compounds. The caffeine contained in citrus tree nectar boosts honeybees\u2019 memories,…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/24167"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"