Bees are nectar experts. They are really good at assessing even really small differences in, like, sugar concentration of nectar. They also scope out the shape and size of flowers and their colour and scent. And now Leonard and her colleagues have discovered that bumblebees are pollen aficionados, too. They found that out by lacing batches of cherry pollen with either table sugar or bitter quinine. And to display the pollen to bees We got really into it we started 3D printing flowers in our lab. And for the anther the male flower part, which presents the pollen - pipe cleaners. So we bought out Michael's craft store supplies of these pipe cleaners and used them in our experiments. Turns out bees would return again and again to the same color flower that dispensed sweet pollen, and spend more time collecting there. But when confronted with the bitter pollen? They sought a different colored flower for their very next stop. All of which suggests that, in addition to savoring nectar, bees taste pollen too - and judge flowers by it. The results are in the journal Biology Letters.