August 5, 2014…Male squash blossom (possibly an acorn squash) You can see the small sipping holes where the bees get the nectar. Male blossoms open earlier than female blossoms and stay open for days at a time.
August 1, 2014…A honeybee sipping nectar from a male squash blossom. The bee picks up pollen from the anther to transfer to the female blossom.
The blossom provides nectar to attract pollinators. This honeybee is sipping from nectar fountain of the female squash blossom…rubbing pollen onto the stigma.
August 6, 2014…this female blossom just opened today. Already there is a bee in attendance.
Open at 9:29 am or before…
Closed at 7:04 pm…after being opened only one day, this female blossom closed up shop.
August 7, 2014…blossom closed yesterday and remains closed. A measurement of 1 3/16″ (30 mm) is made on the diameter of the tiny acorn squash.
Adventures in Natural Beekeeping 
Brilliant post! I am going to look at the bees in my pumpkins more closely! I find ID difficult as they are usually so covered with pollen. I will also have to check if they have those squash bees over here. Your videos are really superb.
Here is one for you. I can smell a lovely perfume sometimes from my pumpkins (I noticed this last year too). It is something that gets carried on the breeze when it is sunny, not by bending over and sniffing them. Do you ever smell anything from yours? Amelia
Thanks for the kind words, Amelia.
I never noticed any particular perfume-y smell in the squash area, but my powers of smell identification leave something to be desired. 🙂
I learned that there is a growing faction of scientists that have proven that plants are intelligent. Darwin worked with his son in his last years to do experiments with plant intelligence and published a book which outraged and scandalized scientists of his time.
Plants gain information with their network of root hairs. These photo’s are so beautiful I can’t dismiss these characters as “Brainless” as a Yale biologist did during his tantrum against the “Plants are Intelligent” folks.
Their roots identify over a hundred different substances. One of these substances, caffein, is used by certain plants who mix it in their nectar to get a
bigger crowd of bees. “Cafe Bee.”
Thanks for the inspiring photography.
Terry
We trench compost coffee grounds prior to planting. Maybe the bees like the ‘buzz” from the caffeine. 🙂
As for plant intelligence, I’ve heard about plants that can purposely emit a smell that will attract a predator to attack a creature chewing on the plant. I think there’s so much we don’t know about plants. My wife read a book that described how plants immediately know if you are casting a shadow on them or if they’ve been ’tilted’ (like a potted plant) and will start adjusting for it. Fascinating stuff.
Research has shown caffeine can improve the bees memory of the location of a nectar source. Not that I believe the caffeine would get into your plants nectar 🙂
Rothamstead Agriculture Research (founded in 1853) tracked mycelium activity in a field of bean plants.
When aphids attack, bean plants (vici a faba) release chemicals that repel the herbivorous insects and attract parasitoids that hunt the aphids. British researchers have now demonstrated that the same chemical responses are induced in bean plants that are not under direct aphid attack, but only if they are connected to aphid infested bean plants by a network of thread-like mycorrhizal mycelia——symbiotic fungal structures known to help gather more nutrients for the plants.(it helps to be online).
“In the past, we thought of symbiotic fungi making nutrients available from the roots and soil, but now we see another evolutionary role for them in which they pay the plant back by transmitting the signal efficiently.” co-author
John Pickett of Rothamstead told BBC NEWS.
So the plants are online in a WEB we don’t know about! But they have been around a lot longer than us. Bees 50 million years, mycelium 450 million years.
Lot’s of time to develop sophisticated technologies.
What was the book that described the plants who immediately know they are in a shadow?
I love the idea of a mycelium network. An underground communication system between plants…the movie “Avatar” presented that idea too.
Thanks for taking the time to write about the bean plants under an aphid attack. It’s so interesting.
The book you are asking about is “What a Plant Knows,” by Daniel Chamovitz. The first paragraph starts out like this…”Think about this: Plants see you. Plants see if you come near them; they know when you stand over them. They even know if you are wearing a blue or a red shirt.” How could you resist an opening like that? I couldn’t.
Is there any research on the health benefits a squash blossom can pass into honey? Or flavors? Or anything else interesting in relation to squash blossoms and honey? Thank you!
I’m not absolutely sure this was a honey bee. If you look up squash bees you’ll find a different species of bee that pollinates the squash. I’ve even seen yellow jackets get in there, presumably for the nectar.