My husband planted a few gourd seeds , they have been blooming but the blooms turn brown and do not make any gourds. There is only one small gourd on the plants. We have plenty of bees. What is causing that?

Stress on the plant or lack of pollination. Has the weather been unduly hot? If there are lots of bees around, do you actually see them at your gourd plants?

We had about 10 days reaching 90 degrees or more. Have not paid much attention to the bees except that there are lots of them around. I have a lot of flowers in the same area. The bees seem to like my hummingbird feeders. So far the 1 little gourd is hanging on.

I would bet it was stress. Make sure they are watered really, really well and see what happens. But you could try hand pollinating some just to see if you want. It is so easy to do. Just use a Q- Tip and transfer pollen from a male flower to a female flower.

How do you tell a male flower from a female?

Male flowers, in back of the flower is a slim smooth stem. Female flowers, in back of the flower is a tiny mini fruit that starts growing as soon as it is pollinated.

Thank you! I will try that

It is like that on cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, squash and such.

I have had lots of cucumbers but I never looked closely at the flowers. I didn't grow squash this year. I sure didn't know about the male and female flowers. I learned something new today

I rarely look at the cucumber flowers that closely myself. But if you do look closely it is easy to see the difference.