On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 10:56 AM, Walter

I've been told for years that bees' tongues aren't long enough for them to
> forage easily on blueberry flowers, unless they bite a hole in the side.
> Not really a matter of taste preference.  Don't know.
> Whatever, bumblebees seem to do a better job.
>
>
Indeed Bluberries are not easy for the honeybees to pollinate because of
depht of flower and it hanging down.
However, bumbles are the ones that make the hole on the sides, but with the
legs not mouth.
Later bees might use that hole to gather nectar.

A single bumble bee can be upto 15 times better than single honeybee. How
ever, a bumble colony might have between 50 to 150 worker while a honeybee
colony between 5000 to 3000 workers.

On the other hand, bumbles and honeybees have different behaviour about
ambient temperature and time of day when they work outside. Temp above 22°C
all honeybees working while all bumble ventilating. Temp >10°C and < 20°C
most bumbles out while honey bees will be increasing with temp.

Finally as far as today I do not have found a single paper stating when the
blueberry flower is receptive to pollination.

In summary neither honeybees nor bumbles are better, they have to be tought
as a pollination couple to cover all posible pollination "windows"
available.

Bumbles give size honeybees give volume .

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