Tomatoville® Gardening Forums


Notices

Member discussion regarding the methods, varieties and merits of growing tomatoes.

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old July 15, 2017   #1
gorbelly
Tomatovillian™
 
gorbelly's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2015
Location: Southeastern Pennsylvania
Posts: 1,069
Default Halictid bees: essential tomato pollinators or robbers?

I've been noticing that, while bumble bees will visit my tomatoes, they prefer my peppers and eggplants among my solanaceous veg. The one pollinator I see constantly and in large numbers on my tomatoes are the little sweat bees/halictid bees. I see 2 dominant kinds. One is a metallic green. The other is a shiny black. The black ones are a little smaller, but both are pretty small as bees go.

The bees are obviously too small to release a lot of pollen by sonicating the way the larger bumble bees do. I notice them chewing on the anther cone very diligently, then sonicating a bit (or that's what it looks like to me--I'm guessing if that's what's happening, I can't hear it because they're small and the frequency is too high). I read somewhere that they chew through solanaceous plants' enclosed anthers to reach the pollen inside, and I've read that some halictids are buzz pollinators, but I haven't been able to find anything that confirms that they buzz pollinate tomato flowers specifically.

The marks left by the sweat bees are more of generalized bruising/chewed up area at the very tip of the anther cone, very different from the discrete "bite marks" left by bumble bees further up on the anther cones. Also, I see a lot of anther cones that are so chewed up that the stigma becomes exerted even if it normally isn't an exerted stigma variety, and I think the sweat bees are mostly responsible for this. I don't mean normal browning as blooms age--many of these are relatively recently opened blooms.

I'm thinking that the sweat bees are actually the species that do most of the pollination of tomatoes. They're easy to miss because they're small and quiet, but they show an enthusiasm for tomato blooms that not even bumble bees have. Once I start noticing them, I see them in large numbers everywhere.

At first, I wondered whether they were "robbers", chewing through the anthers, taking the pollen, but not really contributing to distributing the pollen. Then I wondered whether they work in synergy with larger buzz pollinators like bumble bees by opening up the anthers and making it easier for pollen to come out. I also think maybe they contribute a lot to cross-pollination in a way that even bumble bees do not because they expose the stigma of flowers with their chewing. And we know that nature loves cross-pollination and that tomato flowers that are cross-pollinated tend to set fruit more reliably and produce bigger fruit.

But after seeing so many of them buzzing their wings while chewing, I think maybe they're also successful buzz pollinators, too--they just need to open up the anthers because of their small size and weaker vibrations.

Anyway, these are just some thoughts I had that might interest those of you who like insects and other garden critters.

I do notice that the blooms that look like they chewed on them a lot are almost never the ones that suffer blossom drop.

I tried to research this online but found very little information on sweat bees and their role in pollination. I may have to do more focused research in a library or something to find out more. If anyone knows of good sources of information on this, I'd really appreciate a tip.
gorbelly is offline   Reply With Quote
Old July 15, 2017   #2
brownrexx
Tomatovillian™
 
brownrexx's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: Southeastern PA
Posts: 1,420
Default

I never really noticed them around my tomatoes. I'll have to look a little closer for those cute little guys. I did see a lot of bumble bees as well as a few honey bees on my bean flowers today though.
brownrexx is offline   Reply With Quote
Old July 15, 2017   #3
carolyn137
Moderator Emeritus
 
carolyn137's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Upstate NY, zone 4b/5a
Posts: 21,169
Default

Yes halictids buzz tomato blossoms

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q...e+seed+company

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=27453

Carolyn
__________________
Carolyn
carolyn137 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old July 15, 2017   #4
kurt
Tomatovillian™
 
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: Homestead,Everglades City Fl.
Posts: 2,488
Default

We have the metallic green beneficials.The burrows they created(thought they where marauders at first)help with nutrient transfer and areation at same time.Cute little buggers,look lke those false mimic flys sometimes.
__________________
KURT
kurt is offline   Reply With Quote
Old July 15, 2017   #5
bower
Tomatovillian™
 
bower's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Posts: 6,793
Default

The little metallic bees are beautiful.
I thought chewing was the fault of carpenter bees.
bower is offline   Reply With Quote
Old July 15, 2017   #6
bower
Tomatovillian™
 
bower's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Posts: 6,793
Default

One thing I noticed, the bumblebee queens are not interested in my tomato flowers. They have come for a look and then zipped off to other flowers. Tomatoes don't have any nectar to offer, just pollen. So I think these queens need the nectar as well.
Just to explain, we had a really late spring, and the first crop of worker bumbles aren't out yet. Last summer the worker bees spent a lot of time on my tomatoes, diligently collecting pollen. The queen meanwhile is out doing her thing as sole forager for their little hive until the first workers are ready to take over.
bower is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 11:07 AM.


★ Tomatoville® is a registered trademark of Commerce Holdings, LLC ★ All Content ©2022 Commerce Holdings, LLC ★