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A bee a bee!

Awesome! Get them suckers pollenated!
 
Wow. I've never been anywhere where there weren't bees regularly attacking flowers. Where I'm at now, people who are highly allergic to bees would be terrified - I have TONS of them on the plants in the front yard (not peppers), and some always manage to find their way around to the pepper plants out back. Tons? Yes, probably a good 100+ on the Russian sage plants alone, as long as they're flowering, which is most of the summer. They also "swarm" when certain trees in the area are in bloom. Never in my life have I seen this many bees all together in one small area!

So yeah, you want some more? C'mon over!
 
Its been like humid at 100F idk if the heat keeps them away? But yeah i havnt seen very many. Share some of yours? Lol
 
I have a good Question about this.. isn't this how cross pollination occurs?
that isn't always a good thing as I take notice while browsing threw the Pepper I.D posts

There's a chance you end up with a cross bred nearby plant that sometimes produces non growable seeds?
so what is the proper way to pollinate your true plant without isolating & pollinating with a small paint brush?
 
Isolate your plant away from others and let them self-pollinate. Try a site search for "isolation" or similar, there are many techniques
 
I have enjoyed some of my unknown crosses this year. I plan to take seeds from them and see what next year brings. I have more bees in my yard than all of Delaware but I am to blame for having a butterfly, hummingbird and insect sanctuary.
 
HotPeppas said:
Idc about cross polination seeds arnt that hard to find
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Ya, but growing unwanted crosses can be a big waste of time and space. You likely won't even know there is a problem for 4+ months

JoynersHotPeppers said:
I have enjoyed some of my unknown crosses this year. I plan to take seeds from them and see what next year brings. I have more bees in my yard than all of Delaware but I am to blame for having a butterfly, hummingbird and insect sanctuary.
Click to expand...
Just try to grow out as many f2s as you possibly can
 
Here's a few reasons why bee pollination may be beneficial to your pepper yield.


Capsicum flowers are in the group of open flowers, with hexose (glucose and fructose) rich nectar, although sucrose has not been found (Rabinowitch et al. 1993; Roldán Serrano and Guerra-Sanz 2006). Furthermore, capsicum flowers tend to produce relatively large amounts of nectar, suggesting that cross-pollination by pollen vectors may be favoured (Rabinowitch et al. 1993).
The few studies of pollination of greenhouse capsicum with different pollinators, such as the solitary bees (Osmia cornifrons), bumble bees (Bombus terrestris) or the honey bee (Apis mellifera) have found that insect pollination increased fruit weight and the percentage of extra-large and large fruit compared with self-pollinated fruit (Roldán Serrano and Guerra-Sanz 2006; Jarlan et al. 1997). Bees increase the number of seeds in capsicum fruit and thus the fruit attracts more assimilates, making it grow faster and bigger. The presence of honey bees has shown to be responsible for reduced deformities in fruit as well as more rapid fruit set leading to shorter harvesting periods (Shipp et al. 1994) (Table 2).
Table 2 Mean values for fruit assessment variables that were significantly affected by bumble bee pollination for green house sweet pepper (Shipp et al. 1994)
Treatment​
Fruit weight (g)​
Days to harvest​
Fruit width (mm)​
Whole fruit volume (cm[sup]3[/sup])​
Seed weight (g)​
Bee pollinated​
177.6​
72.9​
80.4​
318.3​
2.1​
Non-bee pollinated​
167.5​
77.0​
77.9​
303.6​
1.8​
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from http://www.rirdc.gov.au/programs/established-rural-industries/pollination/capsicum.cfm
 
My thought is to find the hive where the bees are returning to and get some of that wild flower honey, then enjoy wild flour bee honey / hot pepper sauce... yum!
 
Havent seen many bees yet they will come around during apple picking season and fairs - I have seen a new bug in my yard this year called a Scoliid Wasp apparently I must have a sh!t load of grubs.
 
I know must of you know, but most peppers are self pollinating. Pulled this off another site: "pollination of the pepper flowers occurs successfully without any outside pollination assistance required (assuming that the correct temperature targets are established). However, additional pollination assistance, bumble bees or "artificial" pollination has been demonstrated to improve flower set and eventual yield and quality of the pepper fruit"
 
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