Buzz About Bees

The simplicity that is pollination is one that we as a race would have a hard time living without. Not only because of the food yield, but also the economic impact the industry has had in the last century. The act of pollination has been industrialized for a while now. Some people have even linked the act back to ancient Egypt around 2400 years ago (History of Beekeeping, 2010). Since then the practices have gradually moved into the United States and we have begun to see just how important these insects are to us. The act of commercial bee keeping became the mass market it is now due in large part to a man named James Harbison. He was a bee keeper that had learned the craft from his father. He moved from a farm in Pennsylvania to a plot of
land in San Diego with 110 colonies of bees, and turned that into between 2,000-3,000 hives (Alpine Historical Society). This was the largest bee collection by far for his time. This revolutionized the way bee keeping was done once people saw that such large farms could be managed, and the industry has now grown into the one we know today.
As many would guess the reason bee keeping started was to sustain a food source (Bee Keeping History). Just as we do today many societies survive on farming and crops that either locals grow or that are more large scale. Bee keeping was originally and probably most well-known to provide honey. However this is not the case. Bees help pollinate many varieties of food plants from apples and almonds to onions and red peppers. Domesticated bees are incredibly important to us not only from a food standpoint but from an economic view as well.
The reason we still practice beekeeping and now do it on such a large scale is just as stated before, it is a major boost to our economy and also a sustainable way to produce food. Much of the major crop yield in pollinating plants are in large part due to bee pollination. While there are other pollinators that can help the process along, bees are the most well-known and the most efficient. Some places have even gone so far as to rent out hives to farmers who can then transport those hives around their farms and allow for increased pollination among their crops (Seeds of Diversity). This is a testament as to how essential bees are to many different people who make it by on producing a crop. The number of domesticated honey bee hives (which are apis-bees) had increased by 45% in 2009 in less than 50 years (Aizen, 2009). This is a staggering number and is one that should continue to grow.
Background
Pollination is something that is indeed taken for granted in the world we live in. Pollination occurs when a bee lands on a flower to get nectar, and pollen that is on the stamen is accumulated on the bees body, and when the individual flies to another flower the pollen is rubbed off onto the pistil which allows for the stigma to interact with the pollen. The pollen then hydrates and begins to germinate (Krichevsky et.al., 2007). During the germination process a portion of the pollens membrane becomes active and cause the pollen tube to grow. As the tube grows it allows the sperm to travel down into the plant and eventually reach the ovaries causing fertilization. It is a simple concept to grasp and is quite amazing.
Many people are only aware that there are a couple of different kinds of bees, but there are multiple different types of bees.
The genus name Apis refers to honey bees (Michael Wilson 2009). The difference between an Apis and a Non-Apis bee is the fact that honey bees (Apis) store more excess honey and pollen, hence the name honey bee. This concept is very easy to grasp, but there are 10 different types of honey bees and one hybrid that are in this family so they can be easily confused as many of them look similar (Buzz about Bees, 2010). Honey bees are also different than other types of bees in that their colonies are much larger. A colony normally consists of 1 queen, nearly 50,000 workers, 300 drones, around 9000 larvae, and on top of that there are about 600 eggs that haven’t even hatched yet. The workers are what do the pollination so that is what the study hones in
on.
Domestic bee pollination is done almost like it would happen in the wild. The farmers can either begin bee keeping themselves, or there are services that allow for bee hive renting. It sounds silly but they are not needed year round, only when the crop is fruitful, and this allows the farmer to save time and money for bee upkeep. The way the farms are set up is to have a bee keeper’s hive between the plants whether it be every tree or every other tree. The come and go as they would in a wild situation to gather nectar for their hives, and in turn the trees become pollinated. Crops are normally arranged in rows to allow for the greatest use of the area. The bees normally pollinate down the rows of plants very rarely crossing over into a different row. While this seems efficient because there are multiple hives along each row, the optimal outcome would be for each bee to move to every adjacent tree possible to increase the likelihood of a plant being pollinated. It has even been shown that when the bees cross to other rows the amount of fruit sets is increased which in turn provides more profit to the bee keeper and/or the farmer (Brittain et. al., 2012). Something else that is done to improve crop yield is to vary the cultivars in each row. Cultivars are plants that have been chosen to cultivate and breed (Merriam-Webster). Most plants are hermaphroditic meaning they have both reproductive organs but some do not. On plots where plants that have a gender, such as eggplants, peppers, and other flowering plants are commercially grown the keeper will vary the gender in each row so the bees have a greater chance to achieve successful pollination. These simple steps can increase fruit yield by quite a large amount.
Honey bees have been used alone for many years when used for domestic harvests.
In this study almonds are the main product and what the researchers wanted to find out was if the presence of non-Apis bees would have an effect on the outcome of pollination success. There has been plenty of research on how bees pollinate however there had been no research done on what effect another species of bee would have on the effectiveness of the pollination, and the amount of fruit yielded by other biologists. Sarah Kremen who is one of the researchers in this study has done past research on the effects of wild bees on pollination of sunflowers in 2006, and that was a precursor to this study (Greenleaf et.al., 2006). This study is revolutionary because it can perhaps show that with the introduction of non-Apis bees the production of many different types of plants could increase. While the study takes advantage of the surrounding almond crops in California if proved to be true, the impact this finding could have on the economy and also the environment would be quite
substantial.