home of the Melipona bee –- the only insect capable of pollinating vanilla flowers. In fact, during the early 20th century, Mexico was the world's leading producer of this regal spice.

So what had happened? Edmond told Bellier-Beaumont that he had found a way of fertilising the vanilla flowers by hand, which he had based on a method for hand-pollinating watermelon plants that ...

Recommended for serious growers only, vanilla orchid plants can be high maintenance, and they’re often reluctant to flower ...

It's a difficult spice to cultivate, extracted from the delicate vanilla orchid flower. As a result, vanilla is the second most expensive spice in the world, after saffron. "The other big ...