Bees like strawberry fields, new research

This video from Britain says about itself:

Customer testimonial from S&A, UK – Strawberry pollination. S&A have been using Natupol bees for more than 15 years and can no longer envisage producing a successful crop of strawberries, blueberries, raspberries or blackberries without pollination of Koppert bumblebees. We all know that the number of naturally occurring bees is dropping and that it has become increasingly necessary to produce commercial bumblebees and other pollinators to meet the needs for food production worldwide. Research confirmed that bumblebees were more efficient pollinators than honeybees or any other previously used methods.

From the University of Göttingen in Germany:

Dance of the honey bee reveals fondness for strawberries

January 24, 2020

Bees are pollinators of many wild and crop plants, but in many places their diversity and density is declining. A research team from the Universities of Göttingen, Sussex and Würzburg has now investigated the foraging behaviour of bees in agricultural landscapes. To do this, the scientists analysed the bees’ dances, which are called the “waggle dance.” They found out that honey bees prefer strawberry fields, even if they flowered directly next to the oilseed rape fields. Only when oilseed rape was in full bloom were fewer honey bees observed in the strawberry field. Wild bees, on the other hand, consistently chose the strawberry field. The results have been published in the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment.

A team from the Functional Agrobiodiversity and Agroecology groups at the University of Göttingen established small honey bee colonies next to eleven strawberry fields in the region of Göttingen and Kassel. The scientists then used video recordings and decoded the waggle dances. Honey bees dance to communicate the direction and distance of attractive food sources that they have visited. In combination with satellite maps of the landscape, the land use type that they preferred could be determined. The team also studied which plants the bees used as pollen resources and calculated the density of honey bees and wild bees in the study fields.

Their results: honey bees prefer the strawberry fields, even when oilseed rape is flowering abundantly in the area. However, honey bees from the surrounding landscapes are less common in the strawberry fields when oilseed rape is in full bloom. “In contrast, solitary wild bees, like mining bees, are constantly present in the strawberry field,” says first author Svenja Bänsch, post-doctoral researcher in the Functional Agrobiodiversity group at the University of Göttingen. “Wild bees are therefore of great importance for the pollination of crops,” emphasizes Professor Teja Tscharntke, Head of the Agroecology group.

“With this study, we were able to show that small honey bee colonies in particular can be suitable for the pollination of strawberries in the open field. However, our results also show that wild bees in the landscape should be supported by appropriate management measures”.

Freshly burned longleaf pine forests have more than double the total number of bees and bee species than similar forests that have not burned in over 50 years, according to new research from North Carolina State University. For many forests, fire is as essential as rainfall. But while several studies have outlined the benefits of human-controlled prescribed burns on forest ecosystems, little was understood about how prescribed burns, or fires in general, may impact pollinators: here.

THE CLIMATE CRISIS THREATENS BEES. THIS IS HELPING TO SAVE THEM. Bees are part of a severe biodiversity crisis, which could see a million species go extinct over the next decade because of human actions. To solve it, we must rapidly decrease emissions, slash pollution and protect land. From paying residents to grow pollinator lawns to banning pesticides, here are five reasons to have some hope for the future of bees. [HuffPost]

After more than 70 years, a great mystery of zoology has been solved: Honeybees actually use different dance dialects in their waggle dance. Which dialect has developed during evolution is related to the radius of action in which they collect food around the hive: here.