Welcome To

The Pollination Home Page
Your portal to pollination information and images

poorblackberry.jpg (82746 bytes)

At left: Poorly pollinated blackberry.  The ovules in the center were not fertilized by a pollen grain, so they did not develop drupelets. The most likely cause was insufficient bee visits. To enlarge and compare with a well pollinated berry click on the image

Need bees for your crops? Choose from a worldwide list of beekeepers who provide pollination service. Click the pollination beekeeper link below. No endorsement implied by listing.

Pollination Beekeepers
(Apicultores que alquilan las colmenas de la abeja para la polinización)

Page being reconstructed
Reconstruction underway

I. Welcome to Pollinator 2.0

    Justus von Liebig, a German chemist of the 1800s proposed a significant principle of nature. It's called Liebig's Law of the Minimum, or sometimes the Law of the Limiting Factor.
    Liebig used a barrel as an illustration. The barrel can only be filled to the level of the shortest stave. Likewise in many areas of the natural world, one factor can limit the whole.
    For example, there are eight amino acids that our bodies cannot produce. These must be present in our food, or we will suffer nutritional deficiency diseases. However, they must be present in a proper balance. If one is missing, the others cannot be utilized.
   Corn is a major food of Native Americans. However, if too much corn is eaten, one will suffer deficiency, because it lacks one of the eight essential amino acids - lysine. If lysine is added, the remainder of the nutrients can be used. Whether they knew the reason or not, they invented a dish that solved the problem. They added beans to the diet, creating "succotash," Beans supplied the missing amino acid and made a balanced diet.
    Farmers know that one deficient mineral can cause a serious crop failure, because the plant cannot properly utilize the other minerals which are present. They rely on soil tests to identify any limiting factors so they can be corrected.
    Pollination can be a limiting factor in horticulture. Every other necessary cultural need may be met, but pollination failure can limit the quality, the quantity, or even deny the yield altogether.

Liebig's barrel

Liebig's Barrel

    Dr. Malcolm (Tom) Sanford, Florida Extension Specialist published, in my estimation, one of the most important papers on pollination in the 20th Century. His 1998 paper was the beginning of an official awareness of what beekeepers were seeing all along:  "Pollination, the Forgotten Agricultural Input."  
    Pollinator decline, and the need to manage pollination are the reason The Pollination Home Page and its predecessors, Palmetto Pollinator and The Pollination Scene, were begun more than two decades ago.
    Now it is recognized as more than an agricultural issue, and it is time for an upgrade. So welcome to Pollinator 2.0.
    The old page has been taken down and is being rebuilt, piece by piece with more information, updated and additional links, better graphics, new videos and a whole lot more. This is the happening place for anything to do with pollination, and it will also include some side trips.
Welcome!
Dave, AKA Pollinator, or sometimes The Old Drone
(Drones don't normally get old, unless they fail to fulfil their function in life.)

All about pollination     (Under Reconstruction)

  1. Environment: pollinator education, pollinator decline, pollinator protection
  2. The world of bees (except honey bees)
  3. Honey bees and their management
  4. Non-bee pollinators: bats, butterflies, birds
  5. Pollination management
  6. Plant-pollinator database
  7. Pollination services
  8. Books, links and other resources
  9. Opportunities:  Education, Events, Jobs

II. The Old Drone's Blog   New! Check it out.

III. Other topics of interest   (Lots more coming soon)

Beneficial Insects (and Other Helpful Creatures) Pollinators aren't the only good bugs.
Our exhibit at the 1997 South Carolina State Fair took a blue ribbon!

New! Swarm capture FAIL videos; then swarm capture success!
(Note: the videos in this story are in Flash format, so they should be able to be played by both PCs and Macs. However, your visus software may block them, and you'll have to change settings to see them. Because they are high definition, they are very large files, and folks who have dialup Internet may not be able to download them.

Photos and videos may not be reproduced without permission!

Gardeners Resources

IV. Housekeeping: awards, copyright and photo use, webmaster and misc.

If you are looking for the Pollinator Partnership recently featured in Organic Gardening magazine, their correct address is http://www.pollinator.org.    Enjoy your visit there.
(When you finish there, y'all are welcome to come back and visit here awhile.)

Write to the Webmaster    

Meet the Webmaster

To Use Photos from this web site

Disclaimer #1:  Opinions aren't facts; learn the art of discrimination. Opinions presented for your use and amusement; use at your own risk. No endorsement is implied for anything on linked pages. We cannot guarantee the validity of information, the honesty of the proprietors, nor the quality of products for sale, nor anything else.

Disclaimer #2  I gratefully acknowledge the help of many people on this page. But any errors are mine alone. My wife has been giving me some kind of herbal extract to make me smarter. It hasn't helped, but people do seem nicer to me.

Copyright:   This page in original form and with additions and modifications is Copyright 1996-2012, by David L. Green. Except for short quotes used with attribution, anything used from this web site must be with permission. For further information.

Help us out. 
The Pollination Home Page does not accept advertisements, in a desire to keep the page free of distractions. It is a labor of love by the webmaster, a retired beekeeper. Those who find it useful may wish to make a contribution to help with its expenses. Simply click on the button below to make a donation through PayPal:

(Links from your website are appreciated.)

This site is best viewed with a computer and a monitor.

Latest update: February 25, 2012