Skip Hensler writes:

    <<Are you sure from previous experience that honey bees pollinate broad
beans?  We have raised both bees and broad beans here for years and I don't
believe I have ever seen a honey bee on the beans.  In our experience broad
beans are wind pollinated and the weather has more influence on production
than any other single factor.  Have you tried block planting instead of row
plantings?>>

    I can't prove it, but I know we had about four rows of broad beans on an
allotment when I was a kid. At the time there were many honey bees about; far
more apis than bumblebees. We had more beans than a family of six could
really cope with, despite the fact that nothing was ever put back into the
soil. I probably planted about the same area last year - a block about
fifteen feet by four. Pollination was appalling, and I can only put this down
to the lack of bees, as there were plenty of other insects and
wind-pollinated crops like sweet corn did well overall, where the floods
spared them. Mine tried hard, but the effect of four floods was just too
much.
    There's a lot of information at
http://bee.airoot.com/beeculture/book/chap4/broad.html which seems to
establish pretty conclusively that broad beans are pollinated by bees and
other insects. Apparently the bee's tongue is too short to reach the nectar
in the flower but they visit them for pollen. If other people have observed
something different, however, far be it from me to gainsay that. I shall wait
and see what happens.

Regards,

Robert Brenchley

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