Sorry, I've no idea, but it may help if you tell the posters here what type of orchid you wish to pollinate.

From my limited experience with only one Genera (Tolumnia) it didn't seem to matter to the orchid guy who came armed with a toothpick and labels to put on the plants saying what had been crossed with what, and the date so he would know when to harvest the pod.

The "life" of the specific orchid flower is dependent upon the species. For the vanilla and sobralia, the flower lasts for only a day. While others will stay turgid for weeks to months.

If you intend to hybridize an orchid (first determine your intent: why? Know that if you do obtain seed, you have to flask the seeds on a sterile medium, lab conditions et al.)

In the case of a cattleya, for which I do hybridize, I first remove the pollina capsule from the "mother" plant. You can "self" the plant simply removing a pollina and placing it with a clean toothpick into the receiving stigma. You can save the pollina (removed from the anther cap) in a small square of simple white xerox paper or note paper and fold it up, and store it in a dry container placed in the fridge. Label the pollen (name of the plant and specific variety).

Sibbing is a practice of hybridizing a plant with a member of its own specific species or grex (same hybrid, but not the same plant. A so-called 'sister' plant.)

To make an entirely new hybrid, then take pollen from an entirely different plant (as along as it's within the same genera or like genera). For cattleyas, they can be bred with laelias, rhyncholaelias, brassovolas, encyclias, sophronitis etc.) and pollinate the mother plant.

You can determine the how long the seed capsule (often called a pod, but it isn't a true seed pod) will become ready to either "green pod" harvest (meaning the capsule will be ripe, but still be green and capsule will cut open to remove the seed) or dry harvest, when the capsule opens by reading up on whatever genera you are working with. It takes months for a seed capsule to ripen.

When you have pollinated the flower, if the pollen "takes," the flower will wilt quickly and the ovary (it is pleated) will start to slightly swell, eventually becoming a football like shape.
Tag the ovary with a wire tag (hang it) with the name of the pollen plant and the maternal plant (including the varietals) and the date in which the plant was pollinated.

For more information, go the the American Orchid Society at www.aos.org