UV markings on flowers

Humans and bees are both trichromatic, meaning they have 3 types of cones. Cones are photoreceptors that are able to detect specific wavelengths of light (or UV rays in the case of bees). The types of cones found in bees and humans are different.

Bees: UV, blue, green cones

Humans: red, blue, green cones.

Bees cannot see the colour red, as they do not have photoreceptors (cones) that can detect the red spectrum of light. It can also thus be inferred that flowers with red petals may not necessarily serve to attract bees.

While the bee many not have cones to detect the red spectrum, bees instead have cones that are able to detect electromagnetic waves in the UV spectrum. The implication of this is that many flower petals have UV markings that are visible to bees, but are not visible to the human eye.

Thus to make the "invisible" appear "visible", I went around the school grounds in the evening armed with a UV torch light in an attempt to observe and photograph the various UV markings found on various flower petals. Hope you enjoy the photos I took!

You can read more about bee vision here.