DarynWebb
House Bee
how I got to this question, I found a UV pen in a draw at home and this got me thinking can bees see UV ink? Probably a silly question but thought I'd ask anyway 
Probably a silly question but thought I'd ask anyway.
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drstitson
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yes - use pen to mark around entrances of bait hives, mating nucs etc.
alanf
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Insects see in UV http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...-view-How-insects-flowers-differently-us.html has some examples of what flowers look like to a bee.
However I think what you mean by a UV pen is the sort used to mark property 'invisibly'. That has a fluorescent ink which absorbs UV and emits it at a lower wavelength, i.e. in our visible range. What the bee sees on a flower is reflected UV light. If you could only see in UV what the pen ink produces would be darker than what it's on because it's absorbing some of the incident UV. So a bee would see a mark but the ink isn't reflecting UV it's absorbing it. If you want bees to see a shape you might be better off with a white pigment that reflects and scatters a wide range of frequencies including into the UV.
However I think what you mean by a UV pen is the sort used to mark property 'invisibly'. That has a fluorescent ink which absorbs UV and emits it at a lower wavelength, i.e. in our visible range. What the bee sees on a flower is reflected UV light. If you could only see in UV what the pen ink produces would be darker than what it's on because it's absorbing some of the incident UV. So a bee would see a mark but the ink isn't reflecting UV it's absorbing it. If you want bees to see a shape you might be better off with a white pigment that reflects and scatters a wide range of frequencies including into the UV.
