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Tomatoes are pollinated by bumblebees so I think we will be ok.
My 2 hives died a couple of years ago and my beekeeper friend removed them.Before that UHH was using the back of my yard in Vacationland for their beekeeping classes.There were a dozen hives.
I have noticed the million or so bees gone from my yard but really haven't noticed much of a drop-off in fruit production.
Right now I have the largest number of lemons I have ever seen in the 10 years of living here.
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It is nice to have you back csgray. You make a very important point. I was wondering when someone was going to raise it.
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There are many 'accidental pollinators' that are in the flower for nectar & bang into the pollen... some ant species will pollinate sweet nectar blossoms like citrus flowers, though not as well, in most flowers, as the fuzzier, bigger bodied bees who are actively collecting pollen....
Moths can also do pollination, and members of the Hemaris moths, the hummingbird moths, can pollinate small, deep throated flowers like bee balm & blastedly nice looking flowers of the nastily successful maile pilau, Paederia foetida....
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Again, Obie may get a bumper backyard crop of lemons and his tomatoes may be getting pollinated by bumblebees, but that is a far cry from commercial large scale agriculture needed to feed the 7 billion people on this planet the wide range of foods we are accustomed to eating.
Carol
Carol
Every time you feel yourself getting pulled into other people's nonsense, repeat these words: Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Polish Proverb
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I was just posting my own personal observations.I had 12 or more bee boxes within 100 feet of my house.
I had millions of bees in my yard.
I now have none !!
When I had bees I mostly observed them in the coconuts and Christmas berry.
The honey my friend produced was named"Kapoho Medley".
The UHH honey was named "Christmas Berry".
I still have several cases of jars of the honey!!
My coconuts still produce enough to supply several families and the excess are sold at farmers markets.
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quote:
Originally posted by Obie
Right now I have the largest number of lemons I have ever seen in the 10 years of living here.
Someone I know in Mountain View, who used to keep bees before the hive beetle ate through her hives, said the same thing about her avocados. It's anecdotal of course, but it would be interesting to see if this is a real trend in places where the honeybees have declined. My suspicion is that honeybees are actually a net negative in many places - they outcompete other pollinators that do a better job, and are often nectar-robbers (they cut holes in the bottom of flowers to reach nectar, instead of contacting the pollen; small bees, moths, and flies can't do that).
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quote:
Originally posted by csgray
Again, Obie may get a bumper backyard crop of lemons and his tomatoes may be getting pollinated by bumblebees, but that is a far cry from commercial large scale agriculture needed to feed the 7 billion people on this planet the wide range of foods we are accustomed to eating.
It's not that Obie's tomatoes are pollinated by bumblebees (we don't have any here, though the carpenter bees fill a similar role), but tomatoes as a whole are pollinated almost exclusively by bumblebees. Honeybees are extremely poor pollinators of tomatoes because they must be buzz-pollinated - instead of being exposed, the pollen is inside tubes with slits, and shoots out when vibrated at a specific frequency. Bumblebees do this by vibrating their wing muscles, honeybees don't.
Unfortunately, there is trouble here as well - many native bumblebees in North America are declining, because of a disease accidentally brought in from Europe as a result of (drumroll) rearing bees for use in greenhouse tomato pollination.
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You mean to say that even insects that we don't think can help the bee do? Like the certain moths can help out? And the hover flies actually help? Wow never knew.Thanks
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ah, Obie's bees being gone may be why my mango tree is having fruiting issues. I was told that it produced some of the best and largest Hayden mangoes around and in the last two years have seen very few.
A person who used to live at our place said they would collect about 40-50 mangoes every day during the season.
Inteesting info every one. Just got my lap top back after hard drive crash so just now going through all the links. Thanks!
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Hi, all!
Just wanted to celebrate our new project with all of you! We are now the proud guardians of two new hives of bees (and we're seeking 1-2 more colonies for at least two additional hives.) Our first hive was collected as a swarm in Hilo; our second colony was just purchased from a wonderful queen bee breeder in Kona.
We are on lower Maku'u Drive, and are already seeing lots of the bees on our flowering avocado tree. Prior to getting the hives - NO bees. Now - LOTS of bees. These hives should also be helping out many of our neighbors, since honey bees have a foraging range of 2-8 miles (depending on how prolific the nectar source is.) We took courses at the University from the State's new Apiary Specialist, and are up to date on the latest pest control methods. We will be drowning hive beetles and varroa mites in oil traps, as well as sucking them up with a vacuum aspirator when we open the hives.
We are also cultivating the carpenter bees, and have constructed lilikoi teepees out of old ohia logs. The number one pollinator of passionfruit is the carpenter bee, and the first lilikoi we planted at the base of a dead ohia resulted in a wonderful "village" of carpenter girls in the dead trunk, and we have planted more lilikoi and added more logs to the habitat. An interesting factoid - in Brazil, where most of the carpenter bees have been killed off by pesticides, the passionfruit are now mostly HAND pollinated by hoardes of day laborers. (We are also hoping that having old, natural wood to burrow in, around the lilikoi, will encourage them to avoid our house and lanai!)
Both the honey bees and the carpenter bees are wonderfully entertaining to watch. We sit with our binoculars near the hive entrances and watch them. The honey bees are busily sucking up nectar, carrying in little pillows of pollen on their legs, and building new comb (which we can watch through the glass observation windows that we built into the sides of the hives.) The carpenter girls are funny with their antics, drilling out holes, creating lots of sawdust mulch for the lilikoi, and sitting in the holes with their heads out, blowing nectar bubbles! They are very unaggressive (as are the honey bees, too.) Way too busy with bee work to bother with us!
Anyway, just wanted to share our chosen way to try to give back to the universe, save some bees, and get some of the HPP neighborhood crops pollinated!
Aloha,
Carol and James
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