Daily Devotional - January 7

Biology

Have you heard of “buzz pollination”? About 8% of flowering plants have their pollen so tightly locked away that most pollinating insects cannot reach it. With these flowers, only a loud sound of a certain frequency will release a shower of pollen.

The Virginia Meadow Beauty is one of these flowers; it will not release its pollen unless “buzzed” by a bumblebee. A honeybee can crawl around the flower all day and never get any pollen. Only the correct buzzing sound releases the pollen! In America, bumblebees are required for proper tomato flower pollination. These bumblebees make a buzzing sound at exactly middle C (261.63 Hz). No other frequency causes the pollen to be released from the tomato flower! Honeybees work in silence; therefore, no pollen is released for them. Dr. Sarah Smith Greenleaf demonstrated this process using a tuning fork. When she struck a middle C and placed the tuning fork near the tomato flower, a cloud of yellow pollen appeared. Only bumblebees buzz at the correct frequency to unlock the pollen.

How did buzz pollination come about? What advantage would this be for the flower - to lock pollen from a pollinator? Why would the bumblebee develop the right frequency to unlock the pollen when he could get pollen from other plants that do not require buzz unlocking? We are observing design in this process, and God is that Designer.

All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.

~ John 1:3

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett