The amount of nectar that honey bees collect varies from season to season and on the time of day. When there is a large amount of brood in the colony, foragers concentrate on collecting pollen to feed the larvae; they collect just enough nectar to supply themselves with energy.
Bees don't collect nectar at a constant rate throughout the day. Manuela Giovanetti and Eloisa Lasso found that although pollen loads were fairly constant, the amount of nectar the bees transported increased in the afternoon, as did the sugar concentration stored in their crop. The number of bees carrying nectar increased as the day progressed; in the morning only 2 to 12 percent of the bees collected had nectar in their crop, while in the afternoon from 45 to 89 percent of the bees collected were carrying nectar.
Sometimes, when the nectar flow rate is high, the bees will collect more nectar than they can use, and the honeycomb cells become filled faster than the bees can build new comb. Beekeepers describe a colony in this state as being "honey bound," and when this occurs, the workers will slow down their nectar collection.
The flowers of some plants, such as tomatoes and other plants in the Nightshade, or Solanaceae, family contain no nectar but do produce pollen. They need to be shaken to release the pollen, and at one time this was usually done by humans or, in the wild, by the wind. Farmers have realized that bumble bees and other sonicating bees (bees that produce resonant vibrations) are extremely efficient as "buzz" pollinators, and imported bumble bees are now widely used as the primary pollinators for greenhouse tomatoes and other self-fertilizing fruit such as kiwis (also known as Chinese gooseberries), rape, field beans, raspberries, and currants.
To release the pollen in these flowers, bumble bees grasp the tubular anthers of the plant containing the pollen and rapidly vibrate the flight muscles of the thorax, causing the pollen to be dislodged. The pollen is carried on their hairs to the stigma of another plant, resulting in fertilization.
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