Frivolous Friday, 05.15.2009: The "other" bees

Just back from Madison, where my husband and I attended a workshop on "raising" bees-that-are-not-honeybees for pollination. We've kept honeybees for six years, but can't have them in our backyard because of zoning ordinances that consider our hobby an illicit "agricultural" activity in a residential area. But providing nesting habitat for "wild" species like Mason (a.k.a. Orchard) bees, Japanese horn-faced bees, and Leaf-cutter bees is another matter entirely.

But in addition to providing nesting facilities for these "other" bees for the sake of the backyard garden, we're thinking of introducing some to the place where we keep the honeybee hives. From the "economic" standpoint, that doesn't seem to make much sense, does it? Adding more competition for the same resources is never a good thing, right? Yet we just spent a couple hours this afternoon within twenty, thirty feet of a small apiary and a nesting area for mason/horn-faced/leaf-cutter/etc. bees, all in the same small orchard. And what we learned is that a variety of pollinating insects is a very good thing. Partly because honeybees are not optimal for any number of crops, such as blueberries or afalfa (whereas other species are).

But more interestingly, having a little interference actually knocks honeybees out of the "ruts" that they like to work themselves into. From the farming standpoint, this "rut" is less than optimal, because many flowering plants require cross-pollination to produce fruit/seed. From the honeybee standpoint, it's also sub-optimal. The reason for that is that, when a honeybee worker forages, she prefers to collect pollen from one kind of flower, despite the fact that bees need variety in their diet as much as you and I.

But when you introduce other species, particularly mason/orchard bees, their males--to use the instructor's phrase--try to mate with anything that moves. This includes other orchard bees--female or male--as well as any species that looks "close enough." The unwanted (ahem!) "attentions" of the mason/orchard bees bump the worker honeybee out of her foraging groove, making it more likely that she will visit other plant types (or other sub-species of the same plant in the case of an orchard), and more effectively pollinate. So, apart from the annoyance on the part of the foraging female and the spurned affections of the male, it's a win-win-win for plants, hives, and humans.

I've said before that I don't restrict my teachers to the two-legged sort. The takeaway here is that competition isn't necessarily a zero-sum proposition. Knowing your niche is key. Sure, you can try to elbow into other niches that you can't serve as well as others. You may even succeed. But ultimately it isn't optimal for the larger environment. And, in the long run, it won't be optimal for you.