I've only seen one blue banded bee in my aquaponics system, and that's the same one I've only also seen in my life*, so I thought I'd do a bit of dodgy science.
I've arbitrarily divided my system into electric bee buzz pollinated , and not. The right hand side will be buzzed, the left hand side, not buzzed.
"e l e c t r i c t o o t h b r u s h"
My trial involves resting the end of the electric bee buzz pollinator on the branch near the flowers and activating the device for a few seconds.
Science can be complicated.
I'll only buzz the right hand side of my tomato plants and see if there is any increase in the fruit setting rate. I'll be a bit vague about it, because if the difference isn't obvious, it's not really worth doing, so I think I'll judge it by counting the number of flowers that fail to be pollinated as compared to the number that succeed.
I'll start the count in say10 days and run it for another ten where I count. That way I wont be counting existing flowers.
120 Things in 20 years, Where else would you find equipment as complicated as an entomologist's buzz pollination electric bee?
*I've read that a few times and I'm pretty sure it means something
OK, I really like your idea of learning new skills! In fact, it seems we are interested in many of the same things. I found your site because I'm giving a talk tonight about pollination...and was looking for a photo of the "electric bee." What a hilarious name for a product. Good luck on your projects.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I need all the luck people are willing to throw my way :)
ReplyDeleteIts funny how many emails I get saying that my choices of "things" are the same things they are interested in. I think there must be some kind of list of things in everybody's heads that they think they really should get around to trying or learning about. For some reason a lot of the self sustainability ones seem to be right up their on every list.
A LOT of people say exactly the same thing ie "it seems we are interested in many of the same things" so you share the same interests with them as well :)
I hope your talk goes/went well, and there's nothing quite like cramming minutes before your test :)
Mmmm, I just clicked on the link in the top of this article to see what it was because I forgot where it linked to, and I still cant tell why I put it there. I think it was meant to point somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteSorry people.