A very high percentage of wild honeybee colonies have been killed out by two different mites, one of which entered the country about the mid-80's. Estimations are that wild hives have been about 90-95% wiped out, so the best thing is to try and find out if there are any beekeepers within a 2 mile radius of where you live. Honeybees generally forage up to two miles from their hives, sometimes further if there is a really good nectar source available. There are still wild hives, of course, and many beekeepers' hives will swarm at least once per year, so there are bees living in old hollow trees, buildings, and such. If there are not pollinators available for your cucurbits, you will need to try hand-pollinating. This can be done with a small soft bristle paintbrush, and I've read that some people use cotton swabs for the same thing. You basically need to take pollen from the male flowers and place it in the female flowers (the ones with the tiny little fruit at the base). I did try this before I bought my first beehive last year with so-so results. I suppose that's better than nothing.

Okay I thought all flowers were both male and female they just needed something to get the pollen from one flower to the next. Would you be able to post an image of a Male and Female Cucumber flower? BTW what did it cost to get started beekeeping? (One Hive, Bees, Anti-GettingStung equipment , and the various other stuff)

The cucurbits have male and female flowers. Probably other species too, but I'm familiar with these because I vegetable garden. The female flowers are the ones that look like they have a tiny vegetable of their species at the base of the flower. The male flowers are just on a small stem. I will be glad to post photos if that is something that I can do on this site, or I would be glad to email you photos if you would like. Just let me know. First, go out to the garden and really look your cucumber plants over and take note of several different flowers. You should see that some of the flowers look like they have a tiny little cucumber at the base. The variety I am growing has little cukes about an inch long at the bases of the female flowers. There seems to be more male flowers than females on most of the cucurbits I grow. Let me know if this helps and if not, I can email photos.

Well I went out and looked at my four cucumber hills and out of all the flowers I saw there was only one female on the vine and the flower on it has not completely opened. Well I guess I will wait a little longer.

Dragonfly, how much does it cost to get started in beekeeping? I am only looking at one or two hives. I own an acre lot out in Waxahachie so I do not think I will need more than that.

To start in beekeeping, there are a couple of different routes you can go. You can buy all the equipment from a supplier (except for the bees) or if you are a do-it-yourselfer, you can build you own hives and buy just the frames and basic beekeeping equipment, or if you really want to limit you expenditures, you can build a top bar hive which is very simple and cost-effective. A top bar hive is what is used in many other countries around the world where there are not available resources for most of the beekeeping done in the US. In a top bar hive, the bees are given just bars lined up on top of a single story hive and they build all their own comb the way they want to. It's a little more difficult to manage, but definitely more interesting to see bees work in a more natural bee environment. I have one top bar hive, and three Langstroth (typical style in this country) hives. The top bar is the most interesting one to watch.
Now, for the cost of typical beekeeping. The major cost is in getting set up, not in maintenance. You can buy a complete kit from a couple of major suppliers for anywhere between 200-300 dollars including a basic hive and the supplies needed for managing hives (suit, veil, gloves, smoker, hive tool, etc). If I were just starting out again, I would have done things differently because there are several things that come in a beginners kit that you don't really need, at least in my opinion. Keep in mind that I didn't start beekeeping as a business. It's just a hobby, and I'm not in it for the money or the honey. I have just expanded because I like the bees and it's kind of fun to me. You can buy suitable clothing that doesn't need to come from a beekeeper's supplier. For example, you will need coveralls if you are afraid of being stung, but many beekeepers work the bees in just jeans and a T shirt. I would never do that because one of my hives is pretty agressive and I have a fairly severe local reaction to the stings. You also don't really need a formal veil, when you can make do with a wide brim hat and some netting to go over it down to your shoulders or chest. Regular leather gloves can be converted to beekeeper grade gloves with the addition of some material, elastic, and a little sewing. The favored hive tool is just a Red Devil type scraper. (I already had one of those). If you want to build a top bar hive, the materials are very cheap, and some beekeepers use stuff that they scrounge up from building sites, etc.
Now, for the bees. This time of year, you would have to feed them for awhile because most of the nectar flow is over until Fall, but feeding bees is cheap. It's just sugar and water, and I add some essential oils because that's what I use for bee pest and disease management. I keep hives organically, but most beekeepers put antibiotics, miticides, and other stuff in the hives. I just have an aversion to medicating bees and if they survive without them, great. If they don't, then I'll have to get more bees. So far, I have had no losses (knock on wood), and my hives are strong. You usually buy bees either in "nucs", packages, or you can buy a swarm of bees if you can find a beekeeper who will sell them. I have a friend North of Fort Worth who retrieves swarms and I bought my last swarm from her. They are doing beautifully so far. If you need names of beekeepers I am familiar with who will sell you bees, let me know. There's three of them in a 30 mile radius of Ft Worth. There's also a beekeeper who visits a couple of beekeeping sites that lives in fairly close proximity to you and I'll email him and ask if he sells bees. He has also built some top bar hives and has traditional hives also. One of the beekeepers out in this area is an older gentleman who has been beekeeping for over 30 years, and he likes to show new people the craft. If you would like to visit a good bee forum site, go to
http://beesource.com
Click on the "exchage" to the left of the home page screen, and that will take you to the discussion forum. It's a very informative forum and you can learn much from visiting there, but my first recommendation is to buy a good beekeeping book, of which there are several. "Beekeeping for Dummies" is supposed to be good, although I have not read it. "The Beekeeper's Handbook" by Sammataro and Avitabile has been a great resource for me. There are many good books to choose from though. If you are really interested in beekeeping, do some homework, but by all means, just dig in. You may find that you really enjoy it. And you don't have to get into it just to get honey. You can just leave the bees alone and let them live their own life. Just give them a good place to live and they will pay you in an increase in garden production.

There are three types of flowers produced in cucurbits: male only, female only, and perfect flowers containing both male and female components. Most muskmelon varieties produce male flowers at the beginning of the season and continue to produce them throughout the season. Perfect flowers appear in response to longer days, generally 10-14 days after the first male flowers. These flowers occur on branch runners. Fruit develops only from the perfect flowers. Even in perfect flowers, insects are needed to carry pollen to the female parts (stigmata).

The older cucumber varieties produce flowers in a manner similar to that of muskmelon — male flowers followed by perfect flowers. Newer varieties, called "gynoecious types", produce only an abundance of female flowers. An older variety that produces male flowers is combined with the gynoecious variety at a rate of 10-15 percent of the total seed to provide pollen (a "blender" variety). This random mix of the pollinator variety among the gynoecious plants is enough to set fruit if enough bees are available to transfer the pollen.

Watermelons initially produce male-only flowers and continue producing them throughout the rest of the season. Female-only flowers are produced later in the season at specific positions along the vine in response to longer daylength (shorter night length).

Squash and pumpkin also require bee pollination and the appearance of male and female flowers occurs in response to day length, similar to the other cucurbits.

Good Pollination for Good Fruit: The flowers of cucurbits remain open only for a single day. If they are not pollinated during that time, the flowers abort and drop from the vine. When pollination occurs but is incomplete, fruit do not develop properly. Because many seeds form within each fruit and each pollen grain is responsible for the development of a single seed, inadequate pollination will result in small or misshapen fruit and low yields of marketable fruit. Researchers have found that it takes at least nine honeybee visits per flower to pollinate cucumbers adequately. Since each bee will visit about 100 flowers per foraging trip, usually at least one strong hive is required per acre. Bees are most efficient if they can forage within 200 yards of the hive. Honeybee colonies should be moved into position near the field about the time the first female flowers are seen. If the bees are moved in too early, they may find other attractive flowering plants in the area and not work the cucurbits.

Thought you might also like some further definition of general flower anatomy:
The Flower:
The flower is the reproductive unit of some plants (angiosperms). Parts of the flower include petals, sepals, one or more carpels (the female reproductive organs), and stamens (the male reproductive organs).
The Female Reproductive Organs:
The pistil is the collective term for the carpel(s). Each carpel includes an ovary (where the ovules are produced; ovules are the female reproductive cells, the eggs), a style (a tube on top of the ovary), and a stigma (which receives the pollen during fertilization).
The Male Reproductive Organs:
Stamens are the male reproductive parts of flowers. A stamen consists of an anther (which produces pollen) and a filament. The pollen consists of the male reproductive cells; they fertilize ovules.
Fertilization:
Pollen must fertilize an ovule to produce a viable seed. This process is called pollination, and is often aided by animals like bees, which fly from flower to flower collecting sweet nectar. As they visit flowers, they spread pollen around, depositing it on some stigmas. After a male's pollen grains have landed on the stigma during fertilization, pollen tubes develop within the style, burrowing down to the ovary, where the sperm fertilizes an ovum (an egg cell), in the ovule. After fertilization, the ovule develops into a seed in the ovary.
Types of Flowers:
Some flowers (called perfect flowers) have both male and female reproductive organs; some flowers (called imperfect flowers) have only male reproductive organs or only female reproductive organs. Some plants have both male and female flowers on the same plant, while other have males on one plant and females on another. Some plants have only perfect flowers. Complete flowers have stamens, a pistil, petals, and sepals. Incomplete flowers lack one of these parts.

Well I figure I should post an update on my alleged cucumbers. Well a bit of history on my plants are in order. A few months back my wife picked up some alleged cucumber plants and wanted me to plant them in the garden. I have no idea of where she got them. I am pretty new to the vegtable garden thing and the label spike said cucumber so I planted them.

Well yesterday I went out to do a little foliar feeding to the plants in the garden and noticed this HUGE thing on my alleged cucumber vine. I thought to myself my god this has to be the biggest cucumber I have ever seen. It was about a foot long and two feet in diameter so needless to say I picked it. After looking at it and thinking a little harder it dawned on me that this doesn't really look like a cucumber. It doesn't have that bumpy texture and it is kind of short and squatty. Also the leaves look an awful lot like a watermelon plant I have a the other end on the garden. Now I knew the watermelon plant at the end had not made it that far down the garden yet and it doesn't look anything like the species of watermelon I planted. But low and behold after taking the alleged monster cucumber inside and cutting it I figured out that the alleged cucumber was actually some other species of watermelon. Somebody had switched the labels and I now have six huge watermelon vines. The worst part about it is I cut my largest watermelon open and it wasn't even ripe yet.

That has to be one of the best gardening stories I have ever heard. Thanks for the chuckle. You could go ahead and try planting some cucumbers, but this time, plant them from seed. They are pretty easy to germinate, and this time, you'll know what you are getting. Heck, I wish I could grow watermelons that easily. My attempt last year was a dismal failure, so I'm trying again this year. So far, I have a few melons that are in the range of 8-12 inches, but my melons last year were tasteless, so I'm a bit gun-shy of trying them out again this year.