My boy is 14 inches long

That's my boy Zuke in the picture. He's 14 inches long. I'm so proud of him. I call him my boy, because I played a critical role in his "birth." Yes, I helped "inseminate" his mother. But don't call me a deviant. Other people are doing it too. Food enthusiast Jason Perlow describes why in his post "How to Molest Your Zucchini."

Summer squashes such as Zucchini are some of my favorite vegetables to grow in a home garden. You may notice that no matter how well you take care of them, the damn plants won’t produce any fruit. Well, part of this problem is that there are a lot less bees out there to perform the pollination of these plants, and so the plants just grow large with no fruit growing on them. So you have to give Mother Nature a helping hand. Cue the porno music. [Link]

Perlow has some pictures that show you exactly "how to molest your zucchini." He's even got closeups of the female parts, which means his blog is probably banned in China.

The scarcity of bees is a major problem, as Ben Macintyre writes in the London Times.

Bees are dying across the world at a terrifying rate. The apian epidemic started in the United States, where entire populations of honey bees have simply vanished in the phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder (CCD). At least a quarter of America’s 2.5 million honeybee colonies have been wiped out already, and CCD has spread to Brazil, Canada and parts of Europe. [Link]

Bees, he goes on to say, "pollinate about 80 percent of flowering crops, which in turn furnish one third of the human diet." Wow, I didn't realize we were that dependent on bees. They're nature's gynecologists. A little intrusive, but good for reproduction.

Comments

[mosilager]

Apparently a virus, acute paralysis virus, has been found in many of the collapsed bee colonies. it may be the cause.

[Melvin Durai]

You're right, mosilager. Here's a link to a CNN article:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/09/06/bee.disorder/index.html