How and why pollinators choose which flowers to visit are fundamental, multifaceted questions in pollination biology, yet most studies of floral traits measure simple relative preferences. Here we used vertically and horizontally oriented slippery-surfaced artificial flowers to test whether bumblebees could make a trade-off between floral handling difficulty and nectar sucrose concentration. We quantified foraging energetics, thereby resolving the rationale behind the bees’ foraging decisions. The bees chose flowers with either a high handling cost or low sucrose concentration, depending on which was the energetically favourable option. Their behaviour agreed with the critical currency being the rate of energy return (net energy collected per unit time), not energetic efficiency (net energy collected per unit energy spent). This suggests bumblebees prioritise immediate carbohydrate flow to the nest rather than energy gain over the working lifespan of each bee. Trade-off paradigms like these are a powerful approach for quantifying pollinator trait preferences.