Pollination
Did you know that some of the delicious fruits you enjoy are the result of the hard work put in by a tiny insect?
Pollen is a fine powdery yellow substance produced by flowers. The pollen from one flower has to be transported to another flower of the same species for fertilisation tooccur. A few plants disperse their pollen, aided by the wind. Aquatic plants float their pollen on water, but most plants depend on animal couriers. Mangoes, peaches, apples and a host of other fruits and vegetables are pollinated by bees and other insects such as wasps, moths, butterflies, flies, birds and even mammals like bats. In fact, some plants and their pollinators are so mutually dependent that one cannot live without the other!
Trick and Treat: Flowering plants have a number of lures to attract pollinators. Dazzling colours, heady fragrances, loads of sugary nectar and convenient perches are a few of them. Plants have also adapted their arsenals to suit the creatures visiting them. Blooms pollinated by nocturnal moths are white, large, showy and sweetly scented. They also have lots of nectar. Flowers pollinated by bats are flamboyant, and white or light-coloured since their visitors are nocturnal like the moths. Flowers that attract bees are usually yellow, blue and purple.
The Real Deal: There are 20,000 different species of bees! Of course, not all of them pollinate crops valuable to us. However, nearly three fourths of crop species that provide us food are bee-pollinated. A few among these are almond, cocoa, coffee, strawberries, avocado, mango, kiwi fruit, cashew, onions and tomatoes.
Pollination-dependent crops are five times as valuable as those that do not need pollination—their produce is worth between US$235 and US$577 billion a year. The volume of agricultural production dependent on pollinators has increased by 300 per cent in the last 50 years.
Wild pollinators: Wild pollinators are twice as effective as honeybees which have been raised for this purpose (known as ‘managed’ honeybees). The fruits and seeds are superior in every way, including nutrition, and the yield is much greater. Commercial apiaries (an apiary raises bees on a large scale) not only produce honey and beeswax, but also rent out their hives to farmers for pollination. For instance, California’s almond farms require almost a million beehives for pollination! The Latest Buzz: There has been a drastic decline in the population of wild bees and other wild pollinators. Not only have their habitats been degraded or destroyed, climate change has also had a devastating effect. Rising temperatures and extreme weather events have led plants to bloom at odd times when pollinators are absent or few, depriving the plants of fertilisation and the pollinators of food when they need it! Intensive agriculture (growing just one crop at a time) and the widespread use of pesticides have also led to a decrease in wild pollinators.
World Bee Day: Anton Janša is regarded as one of the pioneers of modern apiculture.
Janša was born in 1734 in Slovenia. His family owned more than a hundred beehives, so although he was a talented painter, he took up professional beekeeping. He designed a new beehive, perfected the techniques of producing honey and wrote books on apiculture. The United Nations decided to observe Janša’s birthday on 20 May as World Bee Day in 2017.
FACT FILE:
◆ The paw-paw, a fruit native to the US, depends on flies for pollination. Farmers hang rotten meat from the tree to draw in even more of them.
◆ Bats pollinate more than 300 species of fruit-bearing plants, including mangoes, bananas and guavas.
◆ Colony Collapse Disorder is a phenomenon affecting honeybee colonies in commercial apiaries. The colony suddenly dies with no healthy adult bees remaining. The bees leave the hive to collect nectar and pollen but never return.
◆ Plants can be pollinated by hand when there is a lack of natural pollinators. The pollen is transferred manually from the stamen of one flower to the pistil of another, using a cotton swab or small brush.
