Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
bats, birds, and a great variety of nectar- or pollen-feeding insects, including honey
bees.
In their quest for nectar, honey bees come into contact with pollen on a routine basis,
because flowers don't produce nectar until the pollen is mature. Some plants, such as
cucumbers, produce male flowers that have both pollen and nectar but no ovaries for
seed production, and female flowers that have nectar only and can produce seeds. To
accomplish pollination, a honey bee visits both flowers (floral fidelity), receiving nectar
from both and pollen from the male flowers. She then shares that pollen with the female
flower during her visit.
Pollen grains have a minute negative charge, and bees have a minute positive charge
and thousands of multibranched hairs capable of attracting, capturing, and holding pol-
len grains. Foragers clean most of these pollen grains out of their hair using their legs
and carry them home packed in the corbiculae, or pollen baskets, on the outside of the
hind legs. But while the bee visits other flowers, some pollen is transferred, and the
plant has accomplished its goal.
Pollen is the only source of protein, starch, fat, vitamins, and minerals in a colony's
diet. By weight, pollen has more protein than beef, and is the best food for developing
larvae and young adults, and for producing brood food. time to try again. They didn't
get all the instructions, it seems.
When bees visit blossoms, they pick up pollen and carry it back to the hive.
A colony will collect nectar and pollen from thousands of plants daily, and from hun-
dreds of different plant species during the course of a season. This diversity provides a
balance of the essential nutrients from pollen needed to grow healthy larvae and matur-
ing house bees, and a rainbow of stored pollen inside the hive.
Collected pollen is returned to the hive by the forager, who promptly dumps it into a
cell that already contains some pollen. House bees pack the pollen into the cell tightly
so space is carefully used. Pollen is stored near the broodnest, where it is used at an
amazing rate. Sometimes, an extraordinary amount of pollen will be collected, and en-
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