Just when you thought sex toys couldn’t be even more helpfulBees Great Pollinators but so are Vibrators! recently published an article discussing how vibrators are now being tried in agriculture to assist in plant pollination. How you might ask? Well the process of Bees pollinating plants is not just about them collecting pollen on their hairy bodies and then transferring from plant to plant but also by the process of flapping their wings close to different plants, causing vibrations and changes in the wind which literally blows the pollen off one plant and into the air. Pollen is of course very light and once airborne can travel significant distances to land on other flowers and plants.
Some plants require sonication, or vibration at a specific and accurate frequency, before they release their pollen. You can even mimic the vibrations of a bee with a tuning fork. Video BY KARL FORD, UMN. See more at: http://www.wired.com/2015/05/bees-great-pollinating-flowers-vibrators/
It is not news that bees are in a massive decline due to various man made and natural ecological factors and so far we have been working to try and help reduce this and turn it around. We need a backup plan though and this could form that backup and a way to produce this ancient and vital process we have all taken for granted for millenniums with technology.
So does it work? In short yes, though it takes a lot of time and tweaking though the increase in yield has been quoted to actually be worth the additional time and effort. There are cases where it in not really applicable and then others where it can work perfectly. There isn’t a need to overthink this and come up with mini drones which can work like robo-bees doing the job our black and yellow friends have been doing from the dawn of time, very simple tech we have had for decades is sufficient to produce great results.
An example of one of these products already on the market is the VegiBee cleverly marketed as “Your Gardens True Love”.
