✨ Wonder

The colour language of flowers

Colour comes from pigments in the petal: anthocyanins make blue and red, carotenoids make yellow. But the colours are not decoration — they are a signal to the bees, and some patterns only insects can see.

The colours shout to the bees: come here! Anthocyanin Anthocyanin Carotenoid
Anthocyanin → blue
Anthocyanin → red
Carotenoid → yellow
A pattern only bees see
2 families
of pigments make nearly every colour
sour → red
same substance, mild → blue
UV
bees see colours we never can