A lot of dahlia breeders do hand pollination. With hand pollination, you pick the seed parent and the pollen parent. If you are going to try hand pollination, you would need to cover the bloom of the seed parent and the pollen parent so that the bees could not get to the pollen.

Do dahlias self pollinate?

Gardeners typically grow dahlias from tubers, but hand pollination is a way to create your own cultivars. Bees and other flying insects pollinate dahlias; however, this can produce unpredictable results.

Do bees sleep in dahlias?

In many bee species, it is the males that stay outside at night, sometimes in large groups called leks. This happens because once the males emerge from their nest, they have no place to go. … Here in my garden, I’ve seen huge bumble bee queens sleeping in the Autumn Joy sedum or clasping onto dahlias.