The first thing that springs to my mind,
when I think of pollination, is bees.
Feral, introduced bees.
I am not throwing nastursiums at honey bees or at their 'feralism'.
I am just stating a fact..the honey bees we are familiar with in Australia
are an introduced species. But where we be without the bee?
Some sweet facts
Bees make a direct
contribution to Australian agricultural production, worth between $100 million and $4 – 6
billion, annually.
Although there are
thousands of registered commercial and part-time apiarists and hobbyists, the
important work of pollinating crops is mostly done by bees in feral colonies.
Australian native bees are
mainly solitary and do not form social hives, like the honey-bee (Apis
mellifera), which is an introduced species, originally from Europe.
Luckily, in Australia unlike the Americas and in Europe, our bees are thriving and we have not had any sign of the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) where worker bees abruptly disappear from a hive.
But bees do not do all this work alone.
There are some carrots and onions flowering in the veggie patch.
These are providing a feast for all sorts of mini beasts
who are, no doubt, returning the favour with a bit of pollination.
A beetle...Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!
A fly...looks just like the common house fly to me,
but it was having a great time feeding on the carrot flower.
And a little geometric bug with long legs to the left of the fly.
Some sort of waspy thing.
A different sort of fly and a bee...of course.
There were also butterflies...lots of butterflies,
but they wouldn't stay still long enough to be photographed.
Nature's abundance.
Rude Barb looks right at home among the rhubarb.
