Hi Friend.
We're finally at that stage in your garden's growing cycle where we get to talk about bees and pollination. This is truly an amazing stage in your garden's cycle and one with endless learning lessons for the children.
First, a little about pollination.
Pollination is the way plants develop seeds, and without seeds, the fruit does not grow.
Some plants are self pollinating like tomato, snap peas, green beans, and peppers- which means they contain both sexes in the same flower.
Other vegetables like cucumber, pumpkin, watermelon, peppers, and squash- produce either male or female flowers and require insect help to transfer the pollen from the male flower to the female flower.
When a bee, honeybee, or bumblebee lands on the flower, it's long tube-shaped tongue is used like a straw to drink the sweet nectar from inside the flower. While the bee is getting a drink of nectar, tiny grains of pollen often get stuck to the bee. As the bee flies to different flowers to get more nectar, some of the pollen grains fall off and onto the new flower. When those tiny pollen grains happen to land on a female flower- the magic happens- and our female flower begins to produce fruit.
The next few images will fully show the role that male and female flowers (and the bees) play in our plant's progression.
