2 comments

  • chabes 4 days ago
    A lot of plants aren’t pollinated by bees. There’s pollinator wasps, flies, moths, butterflies… even birds and bats are pollinators
    • williamdclt 55 minutes ago
      mosquitoes too, though it pains me to give them credit for anything
    • palata 1 hour ago
      Ants as well
      • Foobar8568 57 minutes ago
        Yeah I was about to say ants with passion fruit flowers.
  • palata 1 hour ago
    Pretty sure I see many bees on Magnolias.
    • Diogenesian 38 minutes ago
      Right, the whole point of bees as insect pollinators (reflecting that they are recent evolutionary line) is that they are by a healthy margin the most intelligent arthropod. They will inspect then successfully pollinate anything floral over a wide geographic range. Most insect pollinators are instinctually tied to certain species/families.
      • actionfromafar 22 minutes ago
        Thanks, I never thought about bees like that. They certainly can use many types of flowers, as evidenced by various sorts of honey. Nitpick: some spiders are pretty darn intelligent and even seem to dream when they sleep, apparently.
        • yubblegum 15 minutes ago
          Now I am musing about spider nightmares.
    • globular-toast 40 minutes ago
      My magnolia is the only thing that seems to attract honeybees, which I rarely see otherwise. The article doesn't seem to justify the "not bees" part, though. I'd imagine bees can pollinate them too.