Hi!
Yesterday i collected some profichi to pollinate my figs from two different trees in the wild. I could not hang the profichi on my trees and the profichi stayed at home.
Today i saw some dead wasps near the profichi, and some walking over.
I collected all the live wasps approaching a small piece of paper towel, altough they are microscopic it's easy to do, they climb up the paper and can be put on figs.
Only one entered immediately trough the ostiole, the others seemed to be confused about what to do.
I cut in half some profichi and are full of dead wasps. Why this appened?

In my short experience with the Profichi that Francisco sent me, if the wasps can't leave the figs ostiole (which seemed to happen to me with some unripe Profichi) they simply dye inside the fig cavity after hatching. I opened a few of these and the wasps inside were not in good shape. In some they didn't have hatched yet and in others they seemed lethargic.

With the figs i received, they have only been able to leave the fully ripe Profichi. In this case they were energetic and located the figs to pollinate quickly. Maybe when we remove the caprifigs from the tree and they are not completely ripe they begin to deteriorate and there is no time for the wasps to complete the cycle and leave the fig in good health.

I'm just guessing but they do seem quite sensitive.

Sorry Fico, did not notice this topic

IMO, and after looking at the fig cut-away there seems to be a problem resulting from a lack of sufficient male wasps. (this happens)

reasons,...
- too many insects still inside intact galls - males need to crack the tiny shell to fecundate and ease the escape of female wasps from their capsules.

- not enough evidence of any internal boring (done by males)  through the stamen bush under the eye to 'grind' pollen grain packs , smearing pollen and to ease the female insects way out of the fig. (see picture)

- also for a Med caprifig (Sardinia ?) it seems a bit too late (one month!) for a Profichi to become ripe and exit wasps.

- another possibility to be an environment excess.. say abnormal heat or lengthy  exposure to direct sun radiation at such critical point.


 
Francisco
Portugal

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