Squash bees are out early in the morning and moving pollen around well before honey bees even arrive. Research done by the Department of Agriculture found that squash bees “are largely responsible for the production of cultivated squash across North America and much of the Americas.” That is very cool, right?
I like buffalo gourd (Cucurbita foetidissima) and I haven’t talked about it in many years, so this was fun. If you were to do a little homework you’d find that there has been a lot of research on both the seed of the gourd and also of the tuberous root. And, I remember reading years ago how a native desert farmer made a liquid concoction of the rank foliage and flowers to deter squash bugs. Oh yeah!
The photos are mine of buffalo gourd in flower and fruit. It was late morning and there was a squash bee snoozing inside the flower.
