Bees have a “super power” sense of smell that helps them find pollen. Instead of a nose, they use two antennae covered in thousands of tiny sensors called pore plates. These sensors detect chemical “signals” from flowers, such as sweet scents and special oils in the pollen. Some of these chemicals, called phagostimulants, actually “tell” the bee’s brain that the pollen is a healthy snack full of protein. Interestingly, bees also use static electricity: their bodies have a positive charge that pulls negatively charged pollen toward them like a magnet.
Source:
Pietrantuono, A. L.(2019). “Honeybees generalize among pollen scents from plants flowering in the same seasonal period”. Journal of Experimental Biology.