Go to Otherpower.com Home Page Go to Forcefield Shopping Cart Go to Wondermagnet.com Home Page
Front Page - [Homebrewed Electricity-- (wind) (solar) (hydro) (steam) (controls) (storage) (mechanical)] - Classifieds - Site News
Everything - Newbies - [Remote Living-- (housing) (heat) (light) (water)] - Rants & Opinion - Diaries - Our Products
Where have all the Honey Bees gone ? | 33 comments (33 topical, editorial)
Re: Where have all the Honey Bees gone ? (3.00 / 0) (#10)
by Ungrounded Lightning Rod on Sun May 4th, 2008 at 10:18:12 PM MST
(User Info)

Well Einstein (or whomever) was wrong.

The honeybee is very good at polinating.  But it's hardly the only species of insect that performs this function - or even the only species of bee.  LOTS of flies - bee species or otherwise - and other flying insects are quite willing to visit a series of flowers with a small amount of sweet bait and tote pollen from one to another as a side effect.

For instance:  We have a "hive" of "Blue Orchard" / "Mason" bees to polinate our fruit trees.  They are solitary bees:  Each female makes a separate nest with approximately five offspring to overwinter for the next season.  One of our "hives" consists of a sheltered structure with twenty soda-straw like tubes for twenty females to make nests.  "They separate the chambers and cap the nest with mud - which is why they're called "mason" bees.)  The paper liner of each tube is changed each year so any pathogens are removed - and the liner with the young bees is stored in a refrigerator until spring, then placed in a release box below the nest.  This controls the timing of their emergence to coincide with the blossoming of our fruit trees, and encourages them to nest in the box, so we can pop 'em in the fridge.  But they're native to the area:  If we didn't set up the convenient nest site (to insure a large population for our trees) there'd still be a few wild ones that had nested in convenient holes or hollow plant stems.

If all the honeybees in the world died tomorrow there might be a shortage of polination, and a reduction of yeild, in some commercial orchards for a season or two.  But it wouldn't be the end of agriculture, or even the extinction of the so-called "bee polinated" crop plants.

[ Parent ]



Where have all the Honey Bees gone ? | 33 comments (33 topical, 0 editorial)

Menu
· create account
· How to use the board
· FAQs
· search the board
· Google search the board
· Old Otherpower Board

Login
Make a new account
Username:
Password:

Powered by Scoop
You must be a registered user to post here. It's easy and free, and the link is on the upper right side of your page.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective companies. Postings are owned by the poster, but may be deleted or moved at the ADMIN's sole discretion. The Rest © 2003 Forcefield.
You can Email the board ADMIN here. PLEASE include the username you signed up with!