Our avocado tree is in full reproductive mode, and we are trying to assuage its apparent lust by pollinating it. I’ve been stoked for this activity since last year, when we actually managed to produce one avocado, but this year it seems much harder, even though the tree is helping by opening both male and female flowers at once for part of the day. All we have to do is to move pollen from M to F. The flowers are delicate though, and the pollen hardly free-flowing. If we were sure we were actually accomplishing something the tedium would be manageable, but often it feels Sisyphean, like keeping the kitchen floor clean, or making a dent in my reading list, or getting software engineers to execute a schedule.

At those times, I wish I had pollinators to help me. How effortless the task for them, landing on all the flowers, letting the sticky substance on their legs do the reproductive work. Or maybe not. Recently I read that the flowers are negatively charged and bees positively charged, and when the bee lands, the flower discharges onto the bee, transferring pollen, then takes about 100 seconds to recharge, during which time other bees won’t land on it. Yowza. Perhaps we should not take responsibility for last year’s single avocado.

Although no pollinators seem attracted to our tree, as opposed to other trees as well as numerous flowers in our yard, I have bonded with a single carpenter bee who believes this tree is a prime meet market. For days I observed this one bee hover, hours at a time, in the vicinity. Eventually I looked up the behavior and found that a male carpenter bee attracts a mate by hovering in place. I had also observed him vigorously defend his position from at least one other male bee; it’s a little hard for me to distinguish individuals.

So I was not shocked when my presence at the same tree inspired this bee to attempt to drive me off. Even though I had read carpenter bees don’t sting people, this is a large, loud, active bee so I had to work through my instinctual reactions. Now I just chat with the bee while I work, trying to convince him that he should leave me alone and hover elsewhere, to no avail, as he is just as tireless about getting rid of me as he is about getting rid of rivals and of waiting for his princess to appear.

Since bees know more than I do about flowers, they probably know more about bee-mating as well. It’s not improbable that my presence might deter an otherwise amorous bee-maiden.

Like most “advanced” humans, I’m no boon to Nature unless I’m leaving Her alone.