JohnnieMi,
So, you are transferring pollen by hand?? Or just letting the bees do it??
By the way, I regularly get seeds now, but when I first started.....I was mistakenly putting the pollen onto the beards.....thinking that was the stigma. Now I know better.

Anyway here's a link, that might be helpful to you.

Here is a link that might be useful: Hybridizing How To Link

JohnnieMi,
If you are having much rain you should strip all the leaves off the stalk. Rain trapped in the pocket the leaves make can cause the stalk to rot.

The pollen needs to be fluffy and the stigmatic lip moist.Use a fresh bloom to put the pollen on.

Mike G

Not sure what your doing wrong about half of my iris make seed all by their lonesome. I suppose if i wanted to try crossing i could, but i only have 2 distinct colors with some minor variations, so not much point. I have about a dozen bloomers of each color all from a start of 3 plants 3 years ago. Each color are in different parts of the yard, so unless bees get busy not much chance of natural crossings. I have taken the time to open some of the pods, i just leave em where they fall. for some reason a number of the smaller ones will be empty. The huge ones, egg size and above, will normally have seeds.