Pollinators, Pollinator Gardening, including diverse bees and others

[Adrian]

Last year our town joined the "No Mow May" initiative and encouraged residents not to mow their lawns but instead let the dandelions bloom.  I don't have a lawn myself (I do have some dandelions for sure!) but some neighbors' lawns were pretty spectacular covered in blooms.
Anyway, there was a big bump in bumblebee diversity in my garden last summer.  At least 3 species that I rarely or never see, new to me.   I'm wondering if the big feed of dandelions is the reason.

Hi Steph S in france some people eat dandelion in salad. It can be whitened or you can eat young leaf. You also can cook a jam with the flower.

[Cathy A]

You can also use dandelions to make dandelion wine. One of my uncles used to do this.

[William Schlegel]

Working on doing my tomato garden land for the Montana Bumblebee Atlas with the Xerces Society. You chill, photograph, and release the bees. https://www.bumblebeeatlas.org/

[William Schlegel]

Hunt's bumblebee is common in my garden along with eight other bumblebees but Hunt's is mentioned as a tomato pollinator. Now I just need to find the bumblebees working my tomatoes this August and confirm if its mostly Hunt's.

[reed]

Just a few minutes ago I was watching a small bumblebee feeding or collecting pollen from the tightly closed flowers of some current x unknown tomatoes. I wondered if that is why for the past several years this naturally occurring cross, or I guess grex, has continued to throw new phenotypes of color, shape, size and flavor. 

The original cross has to have involved a much larger fruited domestic tomato, but the bees visit the pimpinellifolium offspring almost exclusively.  For the most part the bumblebees even ignore the semi or fully open flowers of the domestic tomatoes. Exception to that is very late in the season when it's too late to mature fruits but the tomatoes keep on blooming all the way till frost. Maybe it's because there isn't lot of other flowers still blooming that they take notice then.

I will attempt to get a good photo of the ones currently visiting the pimpinellifolium flowers.

[William Schlegel]

Got my bumblebee data fully uploaded. Very interesting. Next step is if possible to figure out which species are pollinating the tomatoes and it could be even more refined potentially with the species tomatoes. With so many bumble bee species- about 9, do they segregate the tomato species?

[reed]

I watched that one type of bee that likes the pimp crossed plants again, and I followed it around the garden a little while. It checked out some squash and sweet potato flowers but didn't seem all that interested and mostly just ignored the other tomatoes except for one.

It is an off type plant that showed up in my Utah Heart patch last year or the year before and has smaller more spherical fruits than normal Utah Heart. The flowers on that plant are quite open with exerted stigmas and the bee stopped at all of the fresher flowers, even if they weren't open yet. The foliage and growth of that plant has no resemblance at all the pimps or pimp crosses.

[William Schlegel]

I think there is at least a little bit of bee activity starting up in my tomato patches. Haven't found a damaged flower yet this year though.

[reed]

In the fall when it's too late to mature fruit the bees do a little buzz dance on the tomato flowers, I guess to shake out pollen but during the growing season they only do that to beans and other flowers, not the tomatoes. I've never seen them prying or chewing tomato flowers open, just beans. Mostly just the little micro-bees like the tomatoes earlier in the season.

This bee observation and identification thing is really interesting, not that I really need another garden hobby.  

[Steph S]

There was a bit of bumblebee interest when I moved seven of my plants outdoors a month ago, but seemed to be ignoring them while feeding on the stupendous bloom of everything else.  But then last week I got up a little earlier to avoid the heat, and sure enough there's a small bumblebee or two working the tomato flowers that newly opened, early morning every day to collect what they have to offer.

[Diane Whitehead]

I can't get close enough to see what kind of bee or wasp it is, but it is not doing its pollinator duty - it's stealing sugar water from the hummingbird feeder.

[William Schlegel]

I think there is at least a little bit of bee activity starting up in my tomato patches. Haven't found a damaged flower yet this year though.

I found bumblebee damaged flowers today on three way crosses between domestic, habrochaites, and galapagense

[Jordy]

Bombus species on wild tomato.

[William Schlegel]

Bumblebee damage to my tomato flowers is now extensive and I saw bumblebees on tomato plants today. Yesterday I saw what I thought was a Hunt's Bumblebee and then maybe a golden northern Bumblebee. Though today I caught one and only one chilled photographed and released it and it was a brown belted bumblebee. At least superficially similar to golden northern so maybe I was wrong since it was moving fast but more data will tell.

So of the seven to nine Bumblebee species found in my garden two to three may be actually be pollinating the tomatoes. A few different Bumblebee species between the garden in town and the garden land four miles away at least so far. Though with more data collection I might even find that they all pollinate tomatoes.

I suspect that early tomatoes are not insect pollinated in my garden. That Bumblebee pollination happens about now and leads to the heavy fall crop of tomatoes. Also that could mean that higher outcrossing rates happen now and that obligate outcrossing tomato species really need this time. Mysteries still abound. Hopefully next weekend a bit more data will be forthcoming. To be statistically significant I would need to recruit some more tomato gardeners in my region with a similar bee fauna. Though I suspect some smaller data set of about ten bees collected off of my tomatoes may satisfy my curiosity. I suppose if I collected ten a year for ten or twenty years the data would be quite good after awhile.

Also I think I am in serious competition with the bees for pollen right now for hand crosses.

[reed]

I suspect that early tomatoes are not insect pollinated in my garden. That Bumblebee pollination happens about now and leads to the heavy fall crop of tomatoes.

I also strongly suspect that in my garden as well except that generally it happens too late for the fruits to ripen. Right now, dahlias, zinnias, sweet potatoes and several other species are blooming profusely. The bees seem to barely even notice the tomatoes.

Often it is recommended to have as much flowering and as much flowering diversity as possible for the little flying critters and I agree with that for their benefit, but they do have preferences that can impact seeds on one species or another. One year when I had a very large patch of dahlias inside the garden and near the sweet potatoes, the sweet potatoes seed set was noticeably less. Their preference generally seems to be, dahlias, sweet potatoes, squash, zinnias then everything else. Sweet potato flowers are like morning glories, the flowers are only open a few hours in the morning and only last one day, so they are at a bit of disadvantage if lots of longer-lived flowers are immediately available. 

I saw a new type of critter this year. It's a little bigger than a honeybee and looks like a cross between that and a bumblebee, which I'm sure it isn't. The abdomen is a bit flattened; I think it might be some kind of fly, but it doesn't like to be approached up close and I haven't been able to get a picture of it.