ABSTRACT: Pollinating insects are undergoing global declines in abundance, distribution and diversity. Conservation initiatives aimed at bees and other pollinators have become popular with individuals and community groups, and are often based on habitat creation and provision of floral resources. There is growing motivation for conservation programs to be evidenced based, and the aim of this study was to use field observations and choice experiments to determine whether different pollinators display preferences for different coloured flowers. In an Irish orchard, field observations indicated honey bees, bumble bees and solitary bees most commonly visited purple flowers, whereas hoverflies mostly preferred white and yellow flowers. Pairwise choice tests using potted plants (Cornflowers, Pansies and Snapdragons) provided supporting evidence that bumble bees and honey bees exhibited preferences for blue and purple flowers, but the preference of hoverflies for lighter coloured flowers was not so clear in these pairwise tests. The results of this study suggest that planting initiatives for pollinator conservation would benefit from consideration of flower colour, and blends of flowers could be constructed so as to attract specific pollinator groups or to promote pollinator diversity in general.
Smith et al. (Thu,) studied this question.