Methods of attracting bees for pollination of nightshades in greenhouses

In the conditions of protected ground, solanaceous crops (tomatoes, peppers, eggplants) require special attention to pollination. Without wind in greenhouses, pollen does not fall from the anthers on its own. In case of insufficient light, overheating, or nutrient deficiency, the tomato flower pistil elongates significantly and grows beyond the 5–7 anthers fused into a tube. Self-pollination becomes impossible in this case, and the agronomist has to look for an alternative to manual shaking of the bushes.

Bee colonies that have previously pollinated cucumbers and managed to raise a large amount of brood cope with this task most effectively. However, tomato flowers do not produce nectar, and the scent of the bushes repels the insects. To direct the bees to the flowers, the agronomist has to use special training techniques.

Methods for attracting bees to tomatoes

To acclimate bees to the crop, hives are moved into the greenhouse at the beginning of flowering. Immediately after this, regular top dressing is started. For this purpose, sugar syrup infused with tomato flowers is used.

The joint flowering method helps to quickly switch bees to tomatoes. For this, several cucumber plants are planted in the greenhouse along with the tomatoes. Bees are attracted simultaneously by two types of syrup — with the scent of cucumber and tomato. Having collected syrup from the familiar cucumbers, the insects quickly switch to collecting tomato pollen. During the period of mass flowering of tomatoes, due to the abundance of flowers, even more bees work on them than on the cucumber beds.

To speed up the process, the method of artificial protein starvation is also applied. Bees are stimulated to look for new sources of protein by temporarily depriving them of their accumulated stores. The work is carried out in a strict sequence.

1. In the morning, remove all bee bread (perga) from the bee nest.
2. Wait until the starving bees begin to actively collect pollen from the tomato flowers.
3. Immediately after the start of collection, return the removed bee bread back to the hive.

In the spring, when wild honey plants bloom outside, bees tend to fly out of the greenhouse. To force them to pollinate tomatoes, completely screen all transoms with netting. Additionally, continue training with aromatic syrup.

Eggplants and peppers are pollinated by bees much more easily, as insects willingly visit their flowers without additional training. With bee pollination of these crops, all fruit sets develop uniformly, fruits grow faster and turn out larger. They have a more attractive market appearance than with self-pollination. It is worth considering that eggplants are more heat-loving than tomatoes and have a long growing season, therefore, in the middle latitudes, they are grown only in protected ground. Also, bees willingly visit greenhouse strawberries, significantly increasing their yield.