From my understanding: I get that for honeybees, they need the nectar to make honey (their energy food source) and the pollen is an additional, essential food source for them which contains protein. They collect both nectar and pollen from flowers. For other pollinators like wasps, they don’t make honey but they still need to eat nectar and pollen which they collect from flowers. Though these pollinators benefit (survive/thrive) by collecting nectar and pollen from flowers, they also help plants to reproduce by carrying pollen between them and depositing it.
But why do they transfer pollen to other flowering plants? Of course this allows certain plants to reproduce, but that doesn’t explain why these pollinators care about helping plants reproduce. Are they little plant farmers who actually realise that transferring pollen and therefore making more plants, would benefit them? That would seem to demonstrate pretty high-level intelligence and foresight, planning wouldn’t it? Or is it just incidental that they’re going between flowers collecting nectar and pollen and happen to drop some pollen from previous flowers along the way?
I really struggled to find any information on the “WHY” of what bees are doing, from their own psychology point of view.
i remember learning about how (some?) flowers are shaped to sprinkle pollen on the back of the insect. They may not need to “consciously” carry pollen, it spreads, it’s on their body.
nectar is supplied in small doses to keep the insect (or the bird) working
insects or birds are just trying to get more nectar (?)
You’re saying is that flowers are nature’s pimp. That’s cool, I guess.
As long as flowers don’t start smacking a bee for not collecting. Feel me?
I mean there is a certain amount of violence, look at how these orchid flowers grab their wasps.
Tagging the OP @SeahorseTreble come and look at this footage, it will give you a different perspective for sure.