Athena Rayne Anderson

This content is from a post originally published on May 17, 2011, on my blog “Pollinators Info” (no longer online).

Bees are the pollinator champions!

Every third bite of food you eat is made possible by bees. Here’s why:

• Bees are entirely dependent on nectar and pollen for food in all stages of their lives.
• Bee bodies are fuzzy and pollen sticks to their hairs easily.
• Bee females have special structures for carrying pollen. A scopa is a fuzzy section on the legs or under the abdomen into which bees brush pollen. A corbiculum is an even more specialized structure in a few groups of bees into which they pack pollen that’s been moistened with nectar.
• Bees are able to pollinate flowers that require special manipulation for pollen release. For example, the anthers of plants in the Family Solanaceae (tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, etc.) have to be vibrated at a specific frequency to get them to release pollen. Only a few groups of bees are capable of doing this (bumble bees are one)- without them, people who grow these crops have to hand-pollinate every flower with a tuning fork!

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