I went to Creekside park, Vancouver, BC on August 8, 2018 from 15:00 – 16:00. It was a warm day with a temperature of 25 degrees Celsius. From my observations of plants, I witnessed a pattern among flowers that bees are attracted to. The bees frequented the tall yellow, pink and purple flowers, while scarcely went to the short white and whitish-pink flowers. These observations are taken from 3 sections of flowers in the park (south side, north side and central), in which the differences among flowers bees frequented are uniform. I plan on studying the characteristics of flowers that bees are drawn to the most and which traits of flowers disinterest bees. There could be many underlying processes that explain the pattern I have observed, including physical attributes of the flower such a shape, size, colour and scent, or environmental qualities such as temperature, season and time of day.
Based on my observations, the initial hypothesis is that bees are attracted to flowers that are brighter in colour. I predict that relative quantities of bees will increase around the red, yellow and purple flowers, and decrease among the white and whitish-pink flowers. A potential response variable is the abundance of bees (continuous) and a potential explanatory variable is the flower colouration (categorical).
This sounds like an interesting and worthwhile investigation!
Apart from their location in the park, is there any difference between the three locations that might affect the bees? Are the types of flowers consistent or is the surrounding vegetation, human activity, disturbance different?
You mentioned that the bees seem to be more attracted to the taller, colourful flowers. Could flower height be playing an equally important role?
I know that many insects see in the ultraviolet spectrum in addition to part of the visible light spectrum. If you were able to identify these species, I imagine you might be able to find some images online of the flowers under UV light. What appears as a plain flower to us can sometimes be highly decorated in UV.
Best of luck – Conrad