Surprising Good News About Coffee...!

Want to do more to help Mother Nature do her thing...like attracting bees? Furnish more coffee!

Actually, I'm referring to the coffee plant and not the finished product. I found an interesting article over on Listverse that talks about how bees are attracted to the caffeine in the coffee plant flower. I mean, who knew?

Coffee Contains Caffeine To Attract Bees

Every other coffee list on the Internet will tell you that coffee was discovered by goat herders, whose goats got a little jolly after munching on coffee berries. But why does coffee contain caffeine to begin with? Well, it’s toxic to slugs and other pests, but it turns out it also has an effect on pollinators such as bees. In fact, scientists think they get—wait for it—a buzz from the caffeine in the flowers of plants.

Scientists found that consuming caffeine helped bees to improve their long-term memories. The caffeine acts on the brain chemistry of bees in a way that makes the flowers more memorable, so the bees are more likely to return to plants of the same type. Though bees and humans are very different, some experts suggest the capacity to be affected by caffeine could be as old as the common ancestors we share, as it impacts our neurological activity on a very fundamental level.

See? Coffee drinkers and bees have more in common that you thought! How cool is that?

Coffee inside again this morning. Still a bit cool out on the patio.