"Rusty Hinge 2" wrote in message
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The message
from "Mary Fisher" contains these words:
"Rusty Hinge 2" wrote in message
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Do they pollinate?

Yes. Often, especially in the autumn.

Tell me more.

I've often seen wasps sticking their faces into late flowers - and, come
to think of it, earlier ones. The flowers of my Cotoneaster horizontalis
seem especially attractive to them.

That's because cotoneaster flowers are very shallow, the nectar is easily
available to wasps, who don't have the long tongues of bees. I've explained
that they need sugar when the larvae are few or absent. Just because any
insect visits a flower doesn't mean it's going to pollinate it.

Bees are 'flower faithful', once they find a source of nectar or pollen
they'll stick with that flower, thus they'll fly from one e.g. apple flower
to another until the supply ends. In that way the flowers are pollinated.
Wasps don't do that so any pollination is accidental.

Wasps and other insects - even bees sometimes - will also exploit the
'extra-floral' nectar which is produce on the reverse of some leaves. If you
turn over a laurel leaf, towards the base at each side of the central vein
and not exactly opposed, you'll see two very small openings. These exude a
type of nectar which is much sought after by sugar-hungry wasps. That's why
you might have noticed many wasps round a laurel bush or hedge.

Next time you see a wasp on a flower make a note of how close to the surface
are the nectaries. If you see a wasp going to a flower with a long corolla
I'll eat my veil.

Mary