Today I learned about buzz pollination

[u/PeacePeople]

While attending the garden I heard an unusual buzzing sound, not the normal flight sound of a bumblebee or a honeybee. While trying to pinpoint the sound I noticed it coming from the flowers, upon futher inspection I noticed it coming from the bumblebees!

They appear to be grabbing on to the flower's tubular anthers and start to vibrate their wings (use flight muscles) at high speeds to vibrate loose the pollen. I tried recording it on video but our fuzzy friend was quite fast in jumping from flower to flower. Apperently this techinque is unique to bumblebees and not all flowers require this method of pollination.

According to this article from Nature.com this is an important way of pollinating several types of crops like tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants and blueberries.

[u/IcedCinnamon]

It's adorable, isn't it? I recorded bumblebees buzz pollinating the poppies in our local wildflower meadow this year and loved seeing them do it. I would walk past that patch of flowers each day and they'd be in there, doing their high-pitched buzzing all over the place. It made me really happy.

That's a super cute little chonker in your video. She has certainly been busy collecting pollen!