How does pollination in greenhouses with bumblebees work?
Pollination in a greenhouse is crucial for a good and healthy crop: without pollination, most crops will not develop or develop optimally. Most horticultural crops (especially tomato, sweet pepper, egg plant, zucchini, strawberry and melon) depend on insects (eg. bumblebees) tor the transfer of pollen, but greenhouse plants are out of reach of wild pollinators. Therefore pollination has to happen in a different way. In the past this was done with ‘tomato vibrators’, but in present day horticultural businesses more often use bumble bees to accomplish this. Pollination through bumblebees is much less labour intensive and therefore cheaper. Also, the use of bumblebees in the greenhouse is a way of biological crop protection.