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The identity and effectiveness of pollinators remain a critical gap that must be filled to improve crop pollination services globally. Observations were made on melons (Cucumis melo L.), a globally significant fruit, to identify floral visitors and their pollinating efficiencies on the plant's quantitative and qualitative yield. The research was carried out between 2019 and 2021 in the Mila region of eastern Algeria. The majority of pollinators on melon flowers were bees (hymenopterans; apoids), specifically Apis mellifera (Linnaeus, 1758), Ceratina cucurbitina (Rossi, 1792), and Megachile pilidens (Alfken, 1924). Compared to other significant pollinators, Megachile pilidens is the most efficient pollinator of melons, with the most pollen seeds deposited on flower stigmas. The results show that all pollinators visit staminate flowers more than pistillate flowers. This is proportional to the amount of nectar secreted by these flowers. We discovered that species abundant in melon flowers prefer staminate flowers over pistillate flowers, which is related to the amount of nectar secreted by the flowers. The quantitative and qualitative yields were calculated immediately after the mature fruits were recovered; the results show that the yield obtained by flowers with free access to insects is higher than that obtained by bagged flowers, implying that insects play an essential role in the pollination of Cucumis melo.
Messellem et al. (Thu,) studied this question.