Quoting from a chapter on Buckwheat authored by Harold Marshall, USDA-SEA
and Pennsylvania State University in Hybridization of Crop Plants published
by Crop Science Society of America concerning methods of crossing and
breeding various crops:

"The plants produce blossoms daily for about four weeks.  Flowers are open
for only 1 day, and the stigmas normally are receptive as long as the flower
is open and not withered.  Buckwheat anthers dehisce early in the morning
and essentially turn inside out in the process. The pollen is sticky and is
arranged in rows on the walls of the inverted anthers."

In another book Chapter 9 Crop Plants and Exotic Plants Dr. Marshall stated:
The flower, which opens in the morning around 8 a.m., has eight yellow
nectaries alternating with the eight filaments at the base of the ovary,
bound together by a cushionlike swelling (Knuth 1909*, pp. 341 - 342). The
flower (fig. 56) secretes nectar in copious amounts, but only in the morning
hours, during which time it is highly attractive to bees (Phillips and
Demuth 1922). Toward noon, the flow lessens, and during the afternoon honey
bees usually abandon the plants. Pollen is also collected by honey bees from
buckwheat.
A colony of honey bees having access to a field of flowering buckwheat may
store 10 to 15 pounds of honey per day (Versehora 1962), and collect 90 to
290 pounds of nectar per acre (Free 1970* Martin and Leonard 1949*). The
honey produced by buckwheat is dark with a strong flavor that is usually
relished only by people who are accustomed to it; however, there is a
greater demand for this honey than can be supplied. The honey is used
primarily in the baking of foods. During a buckwheat nectar flow, the apiary
may have a strong sometimes nauseating aroma which can be detected for some
distance (Pellett 1947*). Mel'nichenko (1963) thought that removal of nectar
by bees stimulated greater secretion. He stated that secretion ceases after
the flower has been fertilized.
Full article can be accessed at :
http://gears.tucson.ars.ag.gov/book/chap9/buckwheat.html
Glenn

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