Scientists from New Zealand's Plant and Food Research institute have found that providing a honey bee colony with sugar syrup promoted a change in behaviour in forager bees, which began collecting pollen over nectar.

Honey bees are essential to pollination of fruit and seed crops.

"Pretty much all of horticulture and just about all of cropping requires honey bees for pollination," apiculturalist Mark Goodwin said.

"By feeding them sugar, the bees in the hive are too busy using the sugar to receive nectar from the workers.

"This gives the signal that nectar is not needed, so the workers switch to collecting pollen, increasing the amount transferred between plants," Dr Goodwin said.