
Bees Help Maintain Plant
CollectionBy Ben
Hardin October 16, 1997Maintaining collections of seeds and plants for many generations
without altering their genetic variability is not a simple matter of
occasionally producing fresh seed supplies. It's a laborious job--for man and
bees. At the North
Central Regional Plant Introduction Station in Ames, Iowa, a new addition
to this vital workforce is the Osmia or mason bee. When the Iowa station was founded in 1948, hand pollination was
the norm. Honey bees were put to work in the 1970's, and they remain the
station's principal pollinating workhorses. But, over the winter, hives
normally don't have enough time to build up their numbers for pollinations that
must be done early in the spring. Purchasing additional bees from suppliers in
the southern United States is costly and runs the risk of conveying diseases
and mites. That's when cool-season workers like Osmia come in handy.
Introduced from Japan in 1977, solitary, hard-working Osmia bees have
for the past 2 years proved their worth in pollinating canola and other members
of the mustard or Brassicaceae family. The bees emerge from artificial
nests to pollinate at precisely the time Brassica plants flower. The station also uses bumblebees. Their long tongues and large
size allow them to pollinate flowers like snapdragons. Other plants the station
maintains include pumpkins, corn, sunflowers, melons, cucumbers, carrots,
chicory, herbaceous ornamentals and shrubs. An article on controlled pollination appears in the October
Agricultural Research magazine. The article also is on the World Wide
Web at: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/oct97/pollen1097.htm The Ames station holds more than 40,000 genetically separate types
of plants from around the world. The facility is part of a national system for
maintaining the genetic diversity of crop plants and their relatives as
potential sources of disease and pest resistance or as future crops. Scientific contact: Peter K. Bretting, ARS
North Central Regional
Plant Introduction Station, Ames, Iowa, phone (515) 294-3255, fax (504)
294-1903, [email protected]. U.S. Department of Agriculture | |