Sexing Pumpkins

A couple of days ago, a FEMALE pumpkin flower showed its glorious yellow head. I had spoken to colleagues about hand pollination before, and was actually looking forward to experimenting with it.
To the left is a female flower, recognisable by its bright orange "bits" (insert scientific term here). The other obvious way of recognising the female bloom is by the fruit attached to the base of the flowerhead. As shown in the following picture below.

In order to be fertilised, the female needs the pollen from the male flower. This is how bees are invaluable to gardeners, as they do nature's work. But where bees are lacking, the human touch may be substituted. I read in one gardening book that a fine brush may be used to collect the male pollen in order to 'dab' onto the female. Thus began my foray into the world of "pumpkin sex"!

Male flowers are the same size and colour as the females, but they have sticky pollen on their stamens located in the centre of the bloom.

So.. in order to simulate "pumpkin sex", load up a fine brush with the pollen from the male flower, like the picture on the right. I used pollen from two different males for variety. After all, we females can afford to be a little choosy, right? ;)

The resulting mix should look something like the picture below. You can see the yellow pollen on the orange female bits if you look closely.

FERTILISED FEMALE FLOWER

Unfortunately, whether due to my inexperience or intrusive ants, the flower which I pollinated did not bear fully-formed fruit (10 days later). I noticed about two hours after I had 'brushed' the female flower, that an army of ants had virtually covered the entire orange bits of the female with dirt which they had trekked into the bloom. Stupid ants. I hope that that's all they will do to interfere with my plants at this stage...