Those Figs Trees, Fig's Wasps and Fruit Flies !!!

Why Fig trees are called  the "Queen Of All Trees"

View this video clip:

 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/the-queen-of-trees/video-giving-food-and-shelter/1358/

They will not be able to produce seed to generate new trees if not because of those Fig's Wasps.

Once their young fruits reaches a certain days old the flower inside the fruits will generate a powerful smell that will attract those female fig's wasps.

This will be the time when fig's wasp will bite their way through and into the fruit's chamber.

The flowers need the helps of these female wasps to bring pollen from other fig tree to pollinate their seeds while the wasps needed a sack to nature their young one.

This is how the two are dependent on each other.

Have a look at how those fig's wasp enter the fig's fruits:


http://www.figweb.org/Interaction/Video/index.htm

Once they entered their main function is to deposit their eggs into those sacks that are designed specifially to hatch the eggs and allows the insect to grow. The female once finished laying all their eggs will die inside the fruit.

Upon maturing the males will be the first to borrowing out of their nursery sacks.  They know their function  is to help their female sisters out of those sacks and mate with all of them.

These female wasps will then perform their duties to crack the pollen sacks and stack them into a kind of pouch to be carried out with them.

See this:  


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZCYoEdavDk&NR=1

While those females wasps crack those pollen sacks the male will borrow the fruit to create the passage for those female to come out with the pollen.

The male, without any wings, will die while the female will be ready to fly and find a new home for their eggs.

See these female wasps coming out of the fig's fruits:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDYAPrlqN90

Another interesting personal observation that I made was that after the ripe fig's fruits falls onto the ground their will normally invite lots of fruit flies. The decaying fruits will attract lots of fruit flies to deposit their eggs to multiply.

These fruit flies will also be a good source of food for your swiftlet.

So you might want to grow some these ara or fig trees around your BH.

There are many species and maybe you need to have a few species on your land.

If you happened to be in Kuala Lumpur there is a place at Jalan Ipoh where you can see a few fig trees.

Those who wish to visit the trees please call 017 755 1318.  There is a small fee for the visit.