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What we learnt from the birds and the bees ..
July 27, 2007 | 25 Comments
Pollination is essential for the propagation of a multitude of plant species. It highlights yet again the wonderful adaptations that both the “pollinators” and the “pollinatees” exhibit in nature. Pollination occurs when pollen grains are transferred from the male anthers to the female stigma of the plant. Depending on species, a single flower could contain both male and female parts or the plant may produce separate male and female flowers. In some species, the pollination will be successful only if the pollen is from another plant of the same species. Our intent is not to provide a treatise on pollination (if that is indeed your fancy you can begin your journey HERE), but rather share with you some stories from our garden.
Pollinators come in various forms – flies, wasps, bees, beetles, ants, moths, butterflies, birds, and even some vertebrates. In our vegetable patch, the bees visit the raspberry and crookneck squash, the ants visit the cucumber and pepper, the hoverfly visits the raspberry and so on…
Bee in the Crookneck Squash flower
Of all the “pollinators”, bees are the most efficient. Bees carry a lot of electrostatic charge which literally pulls the pollen off of the anther. This pollen adheres to the furry legs. When human societies turned agrarian, they quickly learnt about this delicate balance, a dance almost, between the insects and the flower. Today this knowledge is used to full hilt in large and small agricultural operations. In North America, for example, the honey bee was not native. It was brought to aid with pollination and also produce honey in the process.
Number of hives required for an acre of some popular fruits (source: wikipedia.org)
Apples: 1 to 2
Blueberries: 4
Cantaloupe: 2 to 4
Cucumber 1 to 2
Squash: 1
Watermelon: 1 to 3
Bees which are building their populations tend to gather more pollen as it is a very good source of protein. Hence, farmers tend to manage their hives such that a resonable number of hives have growing populations. Recently, there have been reports of diminishing bee populations. If this is a real trend, it could spell havoc to the fruit crops in particular.
In our neck of the woods, the bees start showing up around early to mid-May and stick around till mid-August in full force. They seem to be partial to our blue and purple flowering plants like salvia, blue candleflower, lavender, Russian sage, and the chaste plant.
Purple Salvia. More salvia pictures HERE
The Russian sage is the site of a mid-air collision … or was it an embrace?
Chaste plant
It is important to have flowering plants in the garden to attract the bees.
What does one do when the bees are not around?
Ta da…Aritificial pollination or manual pollination to the rescue.
Last year, we managed to get some additional banana squash late in the season by manual pollination. Squashes have male and female flowers which remain open for pollination only for one day. So for a bee or a human to do the pollen transfer there is a short window. In addition, we need both male and female flowers to be open simultaneously. This is not such a big deal for big farms – but when we have just one plant sometimes that could get tricky. It is a fairly simple process which can be accomplished with a fine paintbrush or a q-tip.
Male watermelon flower (left) and female watermelon flower (right)
Transferring pollen from the male watermelon flower to the female
Simply dab the anther and the sticky pollen will be transferred to the brush much as it would stick to the furry legs of a bee. Then gently tap the brush over the stigma in the female flower. This works best with freshly opened flowers in early to mid morning. It is also important that the inside of the flower is maintained dry. The petals of the flowers usually protect the pistils from getting wet, but sometimes it is hard to get to the pistils without damaging the petals especially if the flower is small.
An excellent “pictorial” can be found HERE
Five days later … a baby watermelon, the size of an orange.
Ants are the chief pollinators of cucumber flowers, which are too tiny for bees. Above, ants in a male cucumber flower.
An enlarged shot where you can see a speck of pollen in the back right leg of the ant. Pollen is a protein-rich food source for these insects.
Some of the pollen sticks to their bodies and gets deposited in the female flower.
A swarm of ants in the female cucumber flower. If the female flower is pollinated, the fruit at its back will grow.
If it is not pollinated within a time window, the flower and fruit will die.
- Jai
Filed Under: ants, artificial-pollination, bees, Cucumber, GARDENING, manual-pollination, Photo Essays, pollination, Pumpkin/Squash, Watermelon
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25 Comments
What a lovely nature? Beautiful pictures… Just love the nature i.e mainly flowers, birds and bees …. Thanks for sharing.
[...] What we learnt from the birds and the bees .. [...]
I am spellbound…..
The bees colliding pic is awesome. I know how difficult it is to capture. I find capturing humming birds quite hard.
fantastic photos..
Srivalli
http://www.cooking4allseasons.blogspot.com
I am trying to imagine the scene when Jai would be running behind the bees.
Fabulous pics!
running behind bees will get you nowhere. they are much too fast. rather you plonk yourself in a place that they like to visit (aka flowers with nectar or pollen) and let the bees come into the frame of the picture. i guess you could find parallels to this in humans as well
–jai
The world all around us is just teeming with life and its potential!
Excellent job the pics have been taken very well. The process of pollination has been described well using the content as well as the pictures
Good use of the make-up brush! Or is that a real pollinating brush, is there anything like that?
this is just a regular artist painting brush -not even high quality…five for a buck types. I haven’t gone looking for a pollinating brush. But am sure that some clever marketer is making a quick greenback or two on it. would be an overkill in my opinion. –jai
Beautiful pics first of all!
Can you please send Bee here for my Ridge gourd and snake gourd plants which are flowering but falling off without fruits?! ;D
Great info,thanks.We do have ants,will see what happens!
Needless to say you would have plonked yourself where “the bee” arrived.
Quite informative post!
Your saturday posts are always beautiful:)
Shn
stunning!!
jai, you are always behind the bees! Is bee running around looking for jay birds too?
of course, didnt you see the picture of “stellar jay” here.
–jai
Amazing pictures and great information! I loved the first picture a lot….
As Shn said, I too wanna say that your Saturday posts are smashing and those pics are so beautiful…Nice piece of info, I thought Bee [s] do all the job but was not aware of ants helping out too in your veggie/fruit garden ;-P
Jai, you win. I give I quit I call uncle uncle uncle you win!!!
Bee told me you had been out chasing bees with your cam. She was making an understatement.
Thanks for the spectacular photos. Are you sure you’re not a pro?
Guys, I can’t keep up with all your delicious posts. I need a partner in crime; working on that!
Have a fabulous weekend!
so you’re going to blog more often? yay!!! – b.
Splendid…you should send them to the National Geographic
Jai and Bee, you guys are wonderful! Those pics are awesome..you should enter them in a nature photography competition. All the best!
Lovely post
Awesome shots, dont want to sound repetitive.
But see, I have an issue with waiting for bees….since I am very sensitive about my nose(which is NOTHING to write home about, I am close to being ashamed), I am always paranoid one of them d*** bees will swoop on it and nip it and it blooms larger than life and blood-red and all. Ya, such gory thoughts prevent me from sitting near the flowers and nectar and pollen for a bee watch!
But thanks Jay for taking on the challenge
.
Aweeeeeeeeesome pics….. a great post….. loved reading it and looking at the beauties….
Beautiful site, amazing photographs and soooo much information!
Thanks!
suvir!!! what a pleasant surprise to see you here. thanks for dropping by! – b.
Beautiful pictures…Excellent photography!!!
[...] also love to visit the flowers of our raspberry bush, squash, watermelon, cucumber etc in our veggie patch. They are the primary [...]
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