This is scientific American 60 second science.

I'm Christopher in D'Artata.

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Home-based bird watchers might have mixed up a batch of nectar

to attract the feathered objects of their affection. It's pretty easy, just

mix sugar and water. But the real stuff is a lot more complex. Nearly all nectors are laced

with amino acids and some contain alkaloids like nicotine and caffeine.

So what's the plant's motivation for producing such chemicals?

It's possible that this is an antimicrobial adaptation of plants, that they're toxifying their

nectar to protect it from spoilage by yeast or other microbes.

Leaf Richardson, an ecologist at the University of Vermont.

He says the compounds might also be a chemical defense.

Maybe the compounds are deterrent to nectar robbers who take nectar without pollinating.

And yes.

Neckpter robbing is indeed a thing.

But Richardson and his colleagues have come up with yet another function for nectar's

chemicals, as medicine for bees. They found compounds in the nectar of wild tobacco,

linden, and white turtle head flowers that cut the numbers of a common gut

parasite in bumblebees by as much as 80%. The results are in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The big unanswered question here, though, is whether bees might actually self-medicate when they're sick.

Preliminary work suggests they do. And if that

notion holds true, farmers and home gardeners alike could boost be health, simply

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