02/01/08 Blue Orchard Bee Part 3

Blue Orchard Bee Part 3. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Sometimes human intervention is a good thing like when a species is near extinction but sometimes it is better left alone. Take the honeybee. Dr. Theresa Pitts-Singer with USDA's Agricultural Research Service says they have been over-managed. PITTS-SINGER: That's part of the problem with the honeybees is that not only do they live in a very social network but we as humans manage them, highly, socially. We bring bunches of hives to one single place all the time so if there is a disease in Florida and all the Florida bees plus Texas and Oklahoma where ever else, everybody is bringing their bees to California at one time then if one group has disease it's really easy to spread that disease. The blue orchard bee is managed much less and so not as susceptible. The blue bee is also a more aggressive pollinator than the normal honeybee. PITTS-SINGER: In some of these crops like apples you have to go between cultivars and they are usually planted in rows. The promiscuous nature of a blue orchard bee would have that bee popping around from tree to tree, across rows, kind of all over the place when it gathers nectar and pollen where the honeybee would tend to go from flower to flower on the same branch. Pitts-Singer says that there is a major difference in the way the two bees collect pollen. PITTS-SINGER: The honeybees also pack the pollen kind of wet onto their legs and so it's really sticking to the bee which is a better way of collecting pollen from a bees point of view but the blue orchard bee collects the pollen on its stomach and it's still dry so when it visits another flower it's more likely to fall off and be transferred. You can ready more about the blue orchard bee research in the latest ARS publication. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.