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Originally Posted by NathanP
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Her name is Marla,not Maria and here's who she is:
http://beelab.umn.edu/
I read through quite a few of the links on that page and she described many genera and species of bees and what crops they are most important for, but not once did I see her refer to Sweat Bees,aka Halictids as far as I read.
Yes, she referred to bumble and honey bees but I saw nothing that said tomato blossoms are always, or similar, pollinated by bumble bees/
It makes sense to me that different kinds of bees in differfent parts of the US, and in different seasons, would pollinate tomato blossoms, but I also know Jeff McCormack well and his background, so still feel that overall it's sweat bees we can't see so well, that do most of it most of the time.
Carolyn, who,in past years spent far too much time in her tomato field and never saw any kind of insect working the blossoms although it's also good to rememebr that most tomato blossoms are self pollenized before the blossom is even open.