Honeybee foragers actively harvest pollen from cranberry flowers by drumming or stroking the anthers. We show these foragers to be superior cranberry pollinators. Stronger colonies fielded more pollen foragers, but syrup supplementation did not enhance pollen foraging. Fielding more pollen-foragers translates into delivering more effective cranberry pollinators for a honey bee colony of a given size.
Cranberry flowers require bee visitation for pollination.
Honey bees visit cranberry flowers for nectar but rarely pollen if alternative floral species exist nearby. This is the first study to link pollinator genetics and resultant pollination efficiency, in this case the consequence of a bee's predilection for actively harvesting pollen and that behavior's associated superiority for pollination efficiency.