Posted July 4, 2017
Over and over again biologists emphasize that some species of heliconia are pollinated “only” by hummingbirds. So much to my pleasant surprise we found dozens of stingless native local bees buzzing around several of the Heliconia collinsiana in our Mayan ethnobotanical garden overlooking Guatemala City. There are plenty of hummingbirds elsewhere in the garden, but I must admit I have not yet noticed them running after any of our four species of local native Heliconia flowers.
I estimate we have minimum of three species of stingless bees happily flying around our garden, plus some much larger bees (with stingers) which are attracted to the Brugmansia flowers (very common garden flower, but not documented to be native specifically to Guatemala).
I would not rule out hummingbirds pollinating heliconia out in the wild, but we have all kinds of pollinators happily flying around our garden, and so far have seen only bees working away at the Heliconia flowers.
