04/18/06 Bee Pollination

Bee-utiful pollination. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Springtime has arrived and with it fruit growers all over the Northwest are getting ready for another busy season. Trees are in bloom and with that comes the bees. One of the most essential workers for any fruit grower is not even on the payroll. If it were not for this seemingly tireless worker, there would not be a crop to harvest. Bees are an integral part of the farming operation. Dr. Steve Sheppard, Associate Professor in the Department of Entomology at WSU explains what bees are really doing. SHEPPARD: Most people think of honey when they think of bees but bees have a requirement of course for carbohydrates and for protein. So they collect nectar and convert that into honey, that's their carbohydrate source and how they survive the winter. But in order to reproduce, to make more bees they have to have protein and for that they collect pollen. And when they do that there's a whole group of plants that require insect pollination or benefit from insect pollination to set their fruit. Honey bees are social insects that collaborate to collect the required pollens and nectars. Farmers and orchardists use this social behavior to pollinate their crops by placing colonies of bees in their fields. SHEPPARD: Almost all commercial beekeepers get a sizeable portion of their income from pollination fees. The grower doesn't really want those bees around all the time because a lot of times they're spraying pesticides or they have farm workers that don't really like the bees all that much. When you see the beehives in the fruit trees or in the orchard it's during the period of bloom. And then as soon as the crop has been pollinated adequately the growers will call the beekeepers and say get them out right away because tomorrow we're going to spray. And of course the most popular byproduct of beekeeping is honey. Sheppard says that not all honey is the same. SHEPPARD: Nectar which is produced by the flower is primarily sucrose but it will have some floral oils and sort of essences like the aroma of the flower and things like that. So the different honeys from different plants can be quite different. It's amazing! People have quite different tastes in honey. So for example in the United States people primarily like a light colored honey, but in other places like certain parts of Europe, they much prefer the dark honey. So the next time you shoo a honey bee away just remember that they are really an important part of the farming industry and create an important commodity of their own. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.