Plants and bees use electrical signals to communicate.

We get, every day, news from science that seems to have come out of Hollywood's wildest movies. This time the news is quite surprising: flowers and bees communicate through magnetic fields. According to a study by Bristol University scientists Dominic Clarke and Heather Whitney, based on reading this electricity, bees may even know which flowers were recently visited by one of their co-workers.

The new findings erode the idea that bees were attracted only to colors and full of flowers. It is as if, in addition, the flowers also emit electrical signals that indicate how pollen and nectar are producing. In an interview with National Geographic, research leader Daniel Robert explained that “the coevolution between flowers and bees has a long and beneficial history, so it may not be that surprising that we are finding out today how sophisticated communication between them. ”

The study was conducted with the creation of "e-flowers", ie artificial and electrically charged flowers to test the perception of bees. For now, scientists are unsure how insects can identify these electrical signals, but tests have shown that this feature plays a decisive role in the pollination process.