DO YOU KNOW NATIVE BEES?

NATIVE BEES: AN IGNORED RECOURSE.

While the domestic bee is being decimated by a number of environmental and biological causes, it may be that the future of the world’s food security lies with the humble native species that almost nobody is aware of. Read more ….

Xylocopa mordax (Caustic Carpenter Bee) (*); Photo courtesy of USGS Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Program

THE SECRET LIFE OF NATIVE BEES (from an article by Enrique Gili, Dec. 19, 2013

 in Ensia,  Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, USA)

As colony collapse disorder takes its toll on honeybees, native bees draw attention as an insurance policy for future food security. Bees, wasps and other species they interact with, the group has evidence suggesting native species are surprisingly robust, despite the downward trend in pollinator populations on the whole.

This is a bright spot amid the dire news heard recently about domesticated honeybees — the demise of hives due to an onslaught of environmental and biological threats. “We’re lacking a lot of data,” says Sam Droege, director of the USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab, a fact confirmed by a recent report published by the Congressional Research Service.

Unlike honeybees, most native species lead solitary lives. Some occupy nooks and crannies in the landscape, such as hollowed out logs, or burrow into the ground. The vast majority of native bee species pass unheeded or undetected by humans. Scant attention has been paid to them, despite the urgency surrounding CCD.

Native bees, for their part, participate in pollinating 70 percent of the world’s flowering plants along with other native pollinators.  Some 26,000 farmers and land managers in the USA have been trained on ways to enhance native bee habitats, publishing evidence-based guidelines on various ways farmers can attract native bees and other beneficial insects to their land and, as a result, also mitigate or reduce pesticide use by attracting small predators, such as flies, wasps and beetles that consume pests known to infest farmers’ crops.

Full article; http://ensia.com/articles/the-secret-life-of-native-bees/

(*) Xylocopa mordax (Caustic Carpenter Bee). The iridescent hue of the wings is known as wing interference patterns, or WIPS. Light bounces off transparent wings, which are made of chitin, to create unusual colors similar to those seen in soap bubbles. Serrations on the wings are a sign of aging. Check out “The Wild Ones” on Ensia, a photo slideshow of some of the species included in the Bee Monitoring and Inventory Lab’s database.

Note of the Editor: More attention is paid in Europe to the native bees; farmers offer artificial sites to favor native bees’ natural reproduction.