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When a bee lands on a flower, it is the vibration of its body – not
its buzz – that triggers the release of pollen, says an engineer in New
Zealand. The finding may lead to improved artificial methods of pollen gathering.

Marcus King of Industrial Research Ltd in Christchurch subjected a
variety of blooms to sounds at frequencies between 320 and 410 hertz – the
same as that made by the bee Bombus terrestris. ‘It had been suggested that
the sound energy was causing the anther to resonate, ejecting the pollen,’
says King.

But King found that the pollen is not released by the buzz. Instead,
the flower’s pollen explodes when vibrations from the bee’s abdomen and
thorax are transmitted to the flower’s anthers. The buzz is merely a by-product
of the vibrations.

King found that when a bee alights on a flower, it sends direct vibrations
into the anther, exerting a force 20 times greater than gravity. A force
of only 5 times that of gravity is needed to make the pollen explode.

King’s work was stimulated by the need of apple and kiwi fruit growers
to find cheaper and more efficient ways of gathering pollen artificially.
At present, pollen from kiwi fruit is collected by manually plucking male
flowers, dehydrating them, and then separating the pollen using screens.
Because the process is so involved, the end product costs between NZ $2000
and NZ $2500 a kilogram.

King is now developing a vibrating device to be connected to a vacuum
pollen suction tube which could help to gather pollen more easily and cheaply.