"meee" writes:
Hi everyone, advice needed! I have planted some vegies in my greenhouse this
year, as it's the only way I can keep kids and dogs from destroying
everything. Unfortunately, I forgot about pollination! Nothing much can get
in there, and being in the city, there aren't many insects around anyway,
excepting ants. So far I have tomatoes, pumpkin, zucchini, pawpaw and runner
beans planted. I have a vague idea on pollinating pumpkins, but nothing on
the rest. The runners have already started flowering, the zucchinis are

Good news about the zucchini--they don't need pollination if you pick the
fruit within a day after the flower fully opens. As for the other crops,
it sounds like you need to get your own hive of bees. There was a story
on [probably] ABC tv some months back, about [IIRC] a teenager who sells
hives of native bees. These are stingless, and a bit smaller than a house
fly. He came up with something quite innovative about housing the bees so
that it's possible to steal a bit of their honey without, as is usually
done, totally destroying the structure of their painstakingly-constructed
honeycomb. I think the hives are tiny, about the size of a kid's beach
bucket, so can probably be mailed through the post.

I do recall the cameraman managing to get the fellow's web address in one
scene, but I don't remember what it was. Maybe I've jogged someone else's
memory? Try google or search the ABC site. Possibly I saw it on "Landline".

If you do buy a beehive, make sure you don't confine the bees to your
greenhouse, otherwise when you can't provide local pollen and nectar the
bees will starve. They need to be able to scour the neighbourhood to
collect water, too, at those times when you forget to replenish a source.
Maybe there will be enough other balcony gardens on your block where the
bees can collect nectar and pollen during the leaner winter months?
--
John Savage (my news address is not valid for email)