By Bonnie Coblentz
While honeybees are important for crops and as a food source for humans, native bees pollinate as much as 80% of many important crops and should be protected as well.
Jeff Harris, bee specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, said the U.S. has about 4,000 species of native bees. Many native bees live in the ground.
“Many of them are struggling to survive in human-inundated landscapes,” said Harris, who is also a Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station researcher. “They need a lot of help, and awareness that they even exist is the first step.”
Many native bees do not sting, and Harris said these native, ground-nesting bees are important pollinators for agriculture.
“For example, the Southeastern Blueberry Digger Bee is a very important pollinator of our commercial blueberries in southern Mississippi,” Harris said. “The blueberry growers are aware of this bee and try to protect nesting areas near their orchards by not mowing or tilling the ground where the bees nest.”
Many farmers encourage nesting in the orchards by offering open grasslands with patchy areas of sandy soil, which is ideal for this bee. Harris said doing this encourages more bees to visit the flowers of their bushes, resulting in higher yields and better fruit quality.
The U.S. Geological Survey, or USGS, which studies the nation’s lands and resources, tracks the efforts of these pollinators as they increase agricultural yields and boost genetic diversity in plants. About 75% of North American plant species require an insect – mostly bees -- to move pollen from one plant to another to effect pollination.
Source : msstate.edu