Most (all?) tomatoes are self-fertile, which means all that has to happen is the pollen get from one part of the flower to another part of the same flower. The wind may do this, a gentle shake by an animal or gardener may do it, or bees do it, by sonicating - they anchor themselves on the flower, buzz their wings and scatter the pollen. Some of it lands on them, and they keep it, the rest pollinates the plant.

I've never seen this happen either - it may only be done by bees in their native habitat, in South America.

The anthers are internal, which is why you never see them...unless you do a little bit of floral dissection. Here's an interesting article for you that explains the pollination process a little bit.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato pollination

Tomatoes are pretty much self pollinating and what causes the blossoms to get pollinated is movement which can be from the wind, an insect landing on a blossom, or you gently shaking the plant. Insects are not a prime factor in tomato pollination.

the site if very interesting, and although i've had bumblebees visit my hollyhocks and beans in the past, i haven't seen ANY this year. is anyone seeing the same?

although the site says that bumblebee comes in second place as a good non-native pollinator of tomatoes, i have never seen a bumblebee taking any interest towards tomatoes in my garden.

i tried the electric toothbrush method and so far, it seems to be working, when my tomatoes beginning to fruit. shaking and the wind just don't seem to do it.

how do you deal w/ (heirloom) tomato pollination (since those hybrids seem to pollinate themselves)?

Our bees are having major problems and last summer around 1/3 of the bees died off with what was called Sudden Colony Collapse. Studies about this problem, and it is a real problem since these pollinators provide use with 1/3 of our food, have found that the honey in the hives have traces of many insect poisons which may lower the bees resistance to a number of things that would kill them. Bees are leaving hives in large numbers to forage and are simply not returning. I am not seeing nearly the numbers of bees this year as in the past which means that many of the fruit bearing trees and shrubs that birds rely on for food may not have any which means those too may die off.

While the honeybee shorage is scary, I am finding that small insects are doing the job in many cases...like ants and butterflies on melons. Some of the tiny fliers on plums, strawberries, and pears I don't know what they are.

Bumble bees are native. They are great pollinators. Commercial green houses use them as number 1. It is thought that honey bees do not know how to pollinate tomatoes or eggplants. It is my thought that NO pollinator has a concern about pollination. They only want to survive, eat and reproduce. It is also my thought that if it were not for the honey, Aplis would still be across the pond. Tell me how the Western Hemisphere was pollinated prior to1600AD?

The reason most people don't see tomatoes being pollinated is because it's done by the hawk moth (also called sphinx or hummingbird moth), and they don't come out until it starts to get dark. First time I saw one I thought "what the hey is a hummingbird doing out here at 10pm?!" Then I realized I was finally seeing this elusive pollinator. My father-in-law regularly killed them off with pesticides, so he had to take a little watercolor brush and polinate them himself. He called it "putting on my bee suit", and if he didn't he got an extremely poor crop. Interestingly, this moth is the adult form of the tomato hornworm, guess they want to make sure their future generations have a constant food source. I like to let the late season hornworms go to town; they'll pupate and winter over underground, giving me a crop of pollinators and an early start next spring.

I have concerns about this discussion providing some false information. The correct answer to the OP's question regarding which insect pollinates tomatoes was provided early on......"Tomatoes are pretty much self pollinating and what causes the blossoms to
get pollinated is movement which can be from the wind, an insect
landing on a blossom, or you gently shaking the plant. Insects are not a
prime factor in tomato pollination."

You don't need bees or sphinx moths or any other flying creatures although they won't hurt and can help. All you need is movement - either wind/breezes outdoors or a fan in a greenhouse setting or anything else that jostles the plants while in flower. btw, this is pretty basic information, provided by any number of vegetable gardening resources.

busysol, where on Gods green earth did you hear that? head shaking and eye roll icon.

http://pollinator.info/blog/?p=225

I like growing mustards because they produce a lot of flowers compared to some other greens, keeps the bees very busy.