Ratios rather than concentrations of nutritionally important elements may shape honey bee preferences for ‘dirty water’

1. Honey bees require minerals for a complete diet. However, from flowers can be inadequate in concentration and composition. Therefore, honey may drink ‘dirty water’ natural sources such as puddles. Some research has attempted to simulate this through bee bioassays, but date, these have tested individually, not mixtures would occur nature. Here, the first time, we use bioassays which range of mineral are presented together choice experiments. 2. Six (NaCl, KCl, CaCl2, MgCl2, NH4Cl, KH2PO4) were used different stoichiometries, water’, puddles, often drink. Based on tolerance ranges literature, offered aqueous solutions at low, medium, high, mixed molar concentrations. Deionised water sucrose neutral positive controls, respectively. Petri dishes set up containers laboratory. Twenty worker (Apis mellifera L.) placed into each container observed drinking behaviour 1 h. 3. preferred treatment comprising high Na:K ratio, medium molarity NaCl low other minerals. This novel finding suggests that should investigated larger scale with multiple hives field highlights importance stoichiometrically balanced diets.