The way to a man's heart . . .

. . . Is through his coffee cup.  Well, not literally a man, but a flying insect vis-à-vis flowers trying to decide what kind of nectar will keep 'em coming back for more.  It seems that citrus nectar has a lot of caffeine in it.  In controlled experiments,"three times as many bees remembered the connection between odor and reward if the reward contained caffeine."

The article says that citrus leaves have toxic levels of caffeine, presumably to ward off insects.  I must say that it doesn't deter leaf-cutter ants.  They go straight for our citrus trees, preferring them over almost every other leaf, and can strip and kill a tree in days.  They've been particularly bad this year.

H/t Rocket Science.

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