EncinoMan
A Bee Pollinating the Hydrangea
Resembling a scene in the film, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, a bee grabs a hydrangea pistil with its front legs and harvests the materials for the hive. The fertile hydrangea benefits in the transfer of the pollen grains to the plant carpel by the bee's messy movement, resulting in fertilization, an important step in the plant's reproduction.
Honey bees travel from flower to flower, collecting nectar and pollen grains. The nectar is later converted to honey. The pollen from the anthers collects on the hind legs, in dense hairs referred to as a pollen basket. As the bee flies from flower to flower, some of the pollen grains are transferred onto the stigma of other flowers.
In the Californian almond orchards, the largest managed pollination event in the world, where almost half (about one million hives) of the US honey bees are trucked to the almond orchards each spring. The apple crop in New York requires about 30,000 hives; the blueberry crop of Maine uses about 50,000 hives each year.
In a recent New York Time article, more than one quarter of the country's bee colonies have been lost by the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) according to the Apiary Inspectors of America. A few possible proposed reasons include a pathogen, toxins, insecticides, or navigation interference by cell phone frequencies.
EXPLORE, #5, on May 26, 2007
A Bee Pollinating the Hydrangea
Resembling a scene in the film, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, a bee grabs a hydrangea pistil with its front legs and harvests the materials for the hive. The fertile hydrangea benefits in the transfer of the pollen grains to the plant carpel by the bee's messy movement, resulting in fertilization, an important step in the plant's reproduction.
Honey bees travel from flower to flower, collecting nectar and pollen grains. The nectar is later converted to honey. The pollen from the anthers collects on the hind legs, in dense hairs referred to as a pollen basket. As the bee flies from flower to flower, some of the pollen grains are transferred onto the stigma of other flowers.
In the Californian almond orchards, the largest managed pollination event in the world, where almost half (about one million hives) of the US honey bees are trucked to the almond orchards each spring. The apple crop in New York requires about 30,000 hives; the blueberry crop of Maine uses about 50,000 hives each year.
In a recent New York Time article, more than one quarter of the country's bee colonies have been lost by the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) according to the Apiary Inspectors of America. A few possible proposed reasons include a pathogen, toxins, insecticides, or navigation interference by cell phone frequencies.
EXPLORE, #5, on May 26, 2007