Most Attractive To Bumblebees?

[bower]

Awesome... good catch, Joseph!

[cecilsgarden1958]

I have mostly bumblebees and they don't seem to find one plant a favorite, although I seem to recall a lot around my cherry plants; but then they have more blossoms, so that would make sense. DIdn't see hardly any honey bees, but saw sweat bees once or twice.

[Gardeneer]

I really don't want any pollinators. They complicate seeds saving by unwanted crossing.
We do get some bumble bees, very few honey bees and more sweet bees. But they don't seem to be interested in tomato flowers when there are other flowers.
To improve pollination I just tap on the trusses as I am walking around. I don't know for sure how much difference that makes.

Gardeneer.

[gorbelly]

We have lots of pollinators of different kinds, but bumblebees are pretty numerous and prominent. I love having them around--they make pleasant, easygoing visitors while I'm gardening. In my garden, they're not picky at all, although they probably love squash blossoms the best. They seemed to have a penchant for getting "drunk" off of them.

I actually plan to plant a bunch of native flowering plants next year to benefit local pollinators, as they're often under stress in suburban environments. Not to mention that those kinds of plants also tend to attract beneficial predator bugs/insects. I don't at all mind bagging blossoms, etc. if I need to save seed. It's a good tradeoff for the benefits of attracting a rich variety of local insect life instead of just the ones that want to eat my veggies.

[joseph]

These tomatoes were pollinated by LA1777, Solanum habrochaites. I had originally intended for the cross to be part of the self-incompatible tomatoes project... However, the S. habrochaites plant is producing fruits that appear to have seeds in them, so it might be a facultative out-crosser instead of being self-incompatible. The mothers are a NoID from my landrace, Black Prince, and Brad - typically my earliest tomato - a red indeterminate saladette. Other plants that I have attempted pollination on include Yellow Pear, a 6 ounce orange descendant of Sungold, my favorite tasting tomato of 2015 - a brown striped indeterminate from a cross with a wild species, and a few other NoIDs from the landrace.


Here's what the flowers of LA1777 look like. So even if it ends up being self-compatible, it still has a highly exerted stigma, which could be a valuable trait for the promiscuously pollinating project.

[joseph]

I have been screening for open flowers, and or other traits that I think might lead to higher cross pollination rates, such as bold floral displays and extra large petals. I am making crosses between varieties with these traits. I am also pollinating these varieties with Solanum habrochaites, LA1777 because it has the exerted stigma trait.

Tiny flowers, but exerted stigma:


Bold floral display and large petals.


Huge petals and exposed stigma. Anther cone somewhat loosely fused.

[berryman]

The favorite for bumblers at my place is comfrey. My plants get huge, the flowers hang down in panicles perfect for them to rumble about upon.

[joseph]

This tomato ripened a few days ago, so I harvested it, fermented the seeds for two days, then immediately planted them. The mother is a variety that I call Brad: my earliest tomato. The pollen donor was LA1777, Solanum habrochaites which has an exerted stigma. There were 20 seeds that looked mature/viable, and 8 that seemed iffy. This is part of my promiscuous pollination project.

[joseph]

Two seeds germinated yesterday from [Brad X LA1777].

Today I planted the seeds from three more crosses that used LA1777 as a pollen donor.

[kath]

We seem to have more bees around this year than we've seen in quite a while. I've noticed bumblebees on a Ranniy Dubinina plant which I'm growing for the first time this year, seeds from Andrey but I've bagged some fruit for seed saving. I'll keep watching and report if I see bees on anything other than Sungold, which they always seem to like.

kath

[joseph]

Originally Posted by joseph

Today I planted the seeds from three more crosses that used LA1777 as a pollen donor.

Two of the varieties have germinated very well.

[gorbelly]

Both my neighbor and I did some extensive landscaping this spring. Especially the neighbor, who removed a couple of large trees and cleaned up a lot of debris and general weedy growth in their yard. I think this destroyed a lot of bumblebee nesting sites, as bumblebees were plentiful last year and tended to my tomatoes very well but until recently I hadn't seen any at all this year.

I finally saw one checking out my tomato plants. She didn't stop. Although because of my late start this year, the plants aren't that big yet and not as loaded with flowers as they were this time last year. Hopefully she was "taking notes" for the future.

I may have shot myself in the foot, as the other bumblebee I saw was too enamored of a bunch of yellow coreopsis at the other end of the yard to bother with anything else.

There have also been a couple huge carpenter bees in the yard. They're not interested in my tomatoes, though they seem to enjoy the tiny flowers like thyme and alyssum. It's kind of comical to see them thrashing around on top of them, trying to balance their giant bodies while the stalks bend and bob under their weight. Earlier in the season, what I assume was a male would come right up to my face and check me out while I was working in the garden. My understanding is that they get territorial around mating time and, though they're not aggressive to people, they like to inspect any moving creatures that get in their territory.

[HudsonValley]

I don't know whether certain tomato varieties are more attractive to bees than others, but I can attest to the fact that tomatillo blossoms are absolute bee magnets. Today I counted more than a dozen bees (bumblebees, honeybees, and smaller ones) on/around my four tomatillo plants at one time. My aunt, a Master Gardener, recommends planting tomatillos around pepper plants to help ensure pollination; I learned this too late to implement this year, but maybe it works for tomatoes, too??? Plus, you could enjoy some salsa verde!

[Gardeneer]

I was in the neighborhood park yesterday and made some observations.

In one location there were some poppy flowers, lavender and daisy.
Both lavender and poppy flowers were crowded by bumble bees. Not a single bee was attracted to daisy flowers as I kept watching for several minutes. Also there were no honey bees around.

Further away there were some oak hydrangea and regular blue hydrangea.
The oak hydrangea was crowded with honey bees (no bumble bees) and there were couple of bumble bees on the blue hydrangea.

This tells me that different bees are attracted to different flowers. dthis confirms my thinking that bees are not attracted to tomato flowers as they are not interested in daisy flowers.

Gardeneer

[joseph]

In my garden today, poppies were the most popular flower with honeybees. I was doing other things than watching bees, but during the minimal observation that I did, I also saw one bumblebee. The small solitary bees were mostly not interested in the bread-seed flowers.