 Pollination
by bees is also referred as hymenopterophly.
Melittophilous plants have sweetly scented
diurnal
flowers that shed their pollen
during the day when bees are active, they are generally yellow or blue
(rarely red), colours that bees can easily see, they have good, strong
landing platforms, and they generally have
nectar guides.
Bees travel from flower to flower, collecting
nectar (converted to honey later),
and in the process pick up pollen
grains. The bee collects the pollen by rubbing against the
anthers. The pollen collects on the
hind legs, in dense hairs referred to as a pollen basket. As the bee
flies from flower to flower, the pollen grains are transferred onto the
stigma of the female flower part.
Nectar provides the energy for bee nutrition, pollen provides the
protein. Furthermore, several melittophilous flowers imitate the shapes
and the sex perfumes of female insects in order to attract the males
that are the pollinators. There might be as many as 40,000 species of l
bees that pollinate the majority of the 240,000
species of flowering plants. As
insects, bees are relatively intelligent and are able to learn how to
locate and operate particular species of flowers that are in bloom at a
particular time. They are also relatively strong and are able to push
their way into complicated flowers that are not accessible to other
insects. |
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