A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Lost bees, no pollination...

I'm not sure what's happening in my area, and ANYONE in the Sacramento Valley or anywhere else where this has happened please let me know.
Afew weeks ago we had record temps in my area, I think 4 or 5 record days over over 100 degrees, the highest being 116 here.
Anyways, since that happened, I haven't seen any Bees around exept these HUGE BLACK Bees. Now for my delema: no bees = no pollination
I can and have been hand pollinating my zucc plant, but as for my tomatoes...well, I dont know what to do. At first I thought I was just watering them too much and they weren't producing, just flowering. But my sister told me it was the heat for so many days that killed off the bees and THATS why my flowers weren't producing any fruit.
What do I do about this??? How can I hand pollinate tomatoes???!!!! is there such a thing??? they are such small flowers and I know NOTHING about this.

Try out this link to an earlier post. I think it might help.

Sarah

ah...maybe I'll try that, thanks for the link Sarah.
I have made it a habit of NOT touching my plants out of fear of killing them, except my Zucc plant...I'm all up in it's business ecery chance I get. Thanks again!!

Chrissy fair

Touching your plants is a great way to pollinate.
Don't be afraid to touch them even if you break off a few branches.
It sure works for me.

Heat really shuts down the tomatoes. The pollen gets sticky and won't drop. You can actually flick the blossoms with a finger to help shake loose some pollen...this is time consuming. I think the few blossoms I flicked actually set fruit earlier than the ones I didn't, but who knows? We've had intense heat here since late winter, and mine finally set fruit pretty well, mostly on their own.