Most know that bees are important for pollination, but with unexplained bee deaths across the country and other regions, fruit and agriculture growers are scrambling for any information about what’s come to be known as “colony collapse disorder.”
So, a Michigan State University (MSU) entymologist’s work about hard working bees in the blueberry fields of southwestern Michigan has brought particular interest.
Pollination is a critical step in blueberry production, and domesticated honeybees typically are put on the job. Growers rent hives that are placed near fields, giving the insects access to the flowers from which they gather nectar and spread pollen from blossom to blossom, fertilizing the year’s crop, Julianna Tuell explains.
Tuell has isolated 166 wild bee species. She was surprised, as were the blueberry growers. Now, she is advising growers to look to the wild bees as well as the domesticated ones to get their produce pollinated.
Funded with a $38,000 Project GREEEN (Generating Research and Extension to meet Economic and Environmental Needs) grant from MSU, Tuell collected, counted and categorized the pollinating insects.
The research team also found seven bee species that had not previously been found as far north as Michigan. These findings, which have been published in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America, not only point to a more diverse ecosystem in the managed blueberry fields, but they also mean that growers may have more options than previously thought for pollinating their crops.
“We found 112 species during blueberry bloom, and 166 species overall,” Tuell says. “They aren’t all visiting blueberries, but at least half of them are contributing to pollination. There’s a really wide diversity of bees across the season, with some that provide pollination during bloom and are also active later in the season.”
Source: MSU
Gretchen Cochran, Innovation & Jobs editor, may be reached here.
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