To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Carpenter bees as pollinators
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2010 23:08:14 -0400
On Apr 25, 2010, at 8:52 PM, Mathew Waehner wrote:
> I have tons of carpenter bees, and my blueberries are fine .
>
So I was checking out my garden today, and the blueberry flowers looked a
little "brown". On closer inspection, about half of all the flowers have
been cut in two places, two neat slits about 1/8" long radiating out from
close to the base. Something is obviously harvesting the nectar without
entering the flower.
I'm pretty sure I don't have carpenter bees, so it's something else. Do
wasps do that? Or whatever the things that look like small black honeybees?
I've seen both of those, as well as the usual bumble bees. The bumblebees
enter the blueberry flowers in the usual way, and pollinate.
I hope whatever it was didn't steal so much nectar that the bumblebees gave
up. I guess I'll know in a couple of weeks.
On a more promising note, this year it looks like two of my cornus mas will
set fruit. I got fruit from one last year, and liked it very much. It would
be exciting to get fruit from two and be able to compare.