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Pollination ecology is the study of the complex relationships between pollinators and the plants they pollinate. Pollination ecologists study the life cycles, distribution, and behaviors of the individuals–both plants and pollinators–as well as the entire ecosystem in which the individuals operate. Pollinators can be animals or they can be physical forces such as wind, [...] No, no. I meant they wear what they eat. Imagine going to the store for peanut butter and coming home slathered in the stuff. That’s what bees like to do. Pollination is enhanced by the pollen that sticks to the hairs of the bee’s body. This pollen adheres easily, and when the bee brushes [...] Pollination saturation is the practice of flooding a crop with an overly-large number of honey bee colonies in order to assure adequate pollination. The practice is used where the crop to be pollinated is either not a honey bee favorite, or when it happens to be in bloom at the same time that other [...] I have an entire shelf filled with nothing but bee books. I have another shelf filled with nothing but books on gardening and field crops. So far, none of this is surprising. What is surprising, though, is that most of the bee books hardly mention plants and most of the plant books barely mention [...] Sonication—also known as buzz pollination—is a method that some bees use to release pollen from stubborn flowers. Plants such as tomato, potato, blueberry, and cranberry have flowers that do not easily release their pollen. Bees capable of sonication grab onto these flowers and vibrate their flight muscles (without moving their wings) until the pollen [...] Nectar guides are colorful patterns or spots on flower petals that guide a pollinator into the portion of the flower where the nectar can be found. These patterns have evolved over time and aid the plant by assuring adequate pollination by insects, especially bees. The patterns may or may not be visible to humans. [...] While most flowers have dust-like pollen, some have a sticky mass of pollen called a pollinium. Many of the orchids have these pollen masses in pairs, called pollinia. The pollinia are attached to stalks that have a sticky pad on the other end. When a foraging insect such as a bee comes into contact [...] The word “syndrome” by itself means “a set of characteristics that are seen together more frequently than by chance alone” or “a number of characteristics or features that seem to go with each other or are believed to be connected in some way.” A pollination syndrome, then, is a group of characteristics that are [...] Thanksgiving Day in the United States is traditionally celebrated with an over-sized meal based on a stuffed turkey. Since the turkey always takes center stage, many refer to it as “turkey day.” However, to be fair we should call it “bee day.” Think about bees if you will be eating broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, [...] Talk of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) tends to bring out two groups of extremists—the group that believes the demise of honey bees will completely destroy our ecosystem and the group that says, “Good riddance, honey bees are not native anyway.” It is true that honey bees are not native to the Americas. If all [...] |
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