At A-1 Honey, we offer our bees for Blueberry pollination.
Contact us for more information.
A Blueberry farm in the Western Cape where the A-1 Honey bees pollinate.
The pollen of the Blueberry is very sticky and rather heavy. Unlike corn or pine pollen it cannot be easily blown around by the wind.
Further the position and shape of the Blueberry flower parts prevent the pollen from falling onto a receptive stigma – even in self-fertile cultivars.
Therefore, in order for the Blueberry plant to set fruit the flowers must be pollinated by bees.
An A-1 Honeybee busy pollinating a blueberry on one of the farms in the Western Cape.
As a bee visits the Blueberry flower, pollen attaches to their bodies and gets carried with them as the bee moves from flower to flower.
When a bee delves for nectar inside the flower, it will brush against the stigma an unintentionally leave behind some of the pollen it is carrying.
Some bee species vibrate each flower with their flight muscles as they collect the pollen. This activity of buzzing ( also known as sonication) will shake the pollen from anthers so it is very easy to collect and also tends to increase pollination.
The Blueberry Plant
A healthy blueberry plant produces thousands of flower buds every year.
A healthy Blueberry plant in South Africa.
It has up to 16 individual flowers developing from each bud every flower is a potential berry, therefore the need for pollination in blueberries are huge.
For the Blueberries to set fruit, the pollen produced by the flower’s anthers must reach the stigma so it can fertilise an ovule which will develop into a seed inside the flower’s ovary.
In order for the fruit to develop normally and reach it’s full healthy size nearly all of the dozens of developing seeds inside each berry must be fertilised.
Pieter Theron at one of the Blueberry farms where the A-1 Honey bees pollinate.
