Iron County Record | 1973-07-12 | Page 12 | Scientists Ponder Bees' Dislike of Cotton Nectar

Scientists Ponder Bees' Dislike Of Cotton Nectar What do bees have against cotton blossoms? That's what scientists at the University of Arizona are trying to find out. And the reason they want to know is a good one: if bees would do the pollinating, hybrid hy-brid cotton would be commercially com-mercially feasible and might result in yield increases up to 25. When confined in cages with cotton blossoms, the bees will almost starve before be-fore complying with attempts at-tempts to get them to cross-pollinate cross-pollinate and aid in hybrid seed production. Already, it has been learned learn-ed that bees swarm to some flowers and scorn others because be-cause of the presence or absence ab-sence in the nectar of 13 basic sugars. Some sugars are actually ac-tually toxic to bees, and these may exist in cotton nectar, nec-tar, scientists say.