Blooming in the time of harvest
Morning time on a pleasant temperature summer day, I was watching the cloud of buzzing insects around flowering coffee trees (Coffea sp.) while others were…
Noise and pollination
In addition to wild pollinators visiting agricultural lands, ’commercial bumblebees’ (e.g. Bombus terrestris audax in Europea) have been used in glass houses and open-field cultivations…
Life is buzzing on the cabbage
Of the many gorgeous herbaceous plants and flowering fruit trees, the buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) in our garden chose the blooming cabbage (Brassica oleracea) as…
Book Review: Pollinators & pollination
📚 Have a read of my book review about an inspiring and thought-provoking book, entitled Pollinators & Pollination: Nature and Society (2021) by Prof. Jeff Ollerton,…
A Sarcophaga fly and the others
At the end of summer, most of the fly species found in our garden chose the overripe fruits of the fig tree as their favourite…
The chayote and the hoverflies
The chayote (Sechium edule) is a great species of Cucurbitaceae, because almost all parts of the plant are edible. Besides the fruit, a lot of…
A pink-headed invasive plant
The pink-headed persicaria (Persicaria capitata; its former scientific name was Polygonum capitatum) is native to Asia and is an invasive plant in the Azores archipelago…
Fig harvest
One day in late summer, we were picking the matured figs at the back of our garden and our harvest was accompanied by louder-than-usual buzzing…
The Mind of a Bee
📚 A snippet from a book about the astonishing cognitive abilities of bee: “We humans have our senses of sight, hearing, smell, and taste neatly…