Everybody knows grasses are wind-pollinated. Right? RIGHT?? Turns out the textbooks have been quietly leaving something out. Bees — honeybees, bumblebees, sweat bees, mining bees — are visiting grass flowers and combing pale yellow pollen straight off the anthers. And they're doing it without the usual floral road signs: no nectar, no big colorful petals, no UV bullseyes. So how on earth are they finding it? In this episode we dig into the surprising science of grass pollen as bee food, the new (and shockingly recent) research showing five genera of bees collecting pollen from a single turfgrass species, what cues bees use to spot grass anthers in a sea of green, and why the lawn under your feet might be quietly feeding the bees you're trying so hard to save with your wildflowers. Spoiler: the cemetery bees from Episode 37 were in on this all along.
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