Pax Vobiscum

 

Heifer Ranch is a working ranch and agricultural demonstration farm at Perryville, Arkansas. This year I witnessed at the ranch how honey bees play a role in restoring and enhancing the environment for both plants and animals. Managed honey bees along with feral colonies and native bees and pollinators play a quiet and barely seen role in the life of the ranch. For instance, bees pollinate legumes, including clover, vetch, lespedeza, alfalfa, partridge peas, and beggar’s lice, as they gather nectar and pollen to feed their colony. Pollination is the first step in the production of seed for these plants growing in pastures. Legumes provide high-value, nitrogen-rich food for livestock and wildlife animals, and legumes are but one family of flowering plants and grasses that feed livestock on the ranch. The livestock, selectively bred to thrive on grasses rather than grain feeds, are managed for sale for human consumption.

As well as producing seed by pollinating plants, bees benefit the environment by enriching the soil. Bacteria dwelling on the roots of legumes convert atmospheric nitrogen into a form suitable for use by plants. Thus, they enrich the soil and promote the growth of pasture grasses and increase the carrying capacity of the land. Regenerative agricultural practices employ measures replicating the natural grazing of wildlife that allows grasses to develop deep roots. Heifer Ranch cattle and sheep, shown here rotating to another of the ranch’s pastures of tall grasses, graze the way bison move across the Great Plains, constantly moving to forage available grasses. The cattle and sheep eat the top growth of the grasses and deposit manure that fertilizes the pastures. Their hooves push nutrients into the soil; the soil improves; grasses develop deeper roots; and the soil retains more water than soil under shallow roots. The honey bee queen ends her short winter break and starts laying eggs on the winter solstice to regenerate the colony. The Underhill family of Peace Bee Farm offer to all: Peace be with you.

--Richard

Alfalfa Leafcutting Bees

Idaho’s Treasure Valley is an irrigated high desert, making it a diverse agricultural region producing crops for humans and animals. Many of these crops require pollination, so there are plenty of managed bee colonies in the area. Most of the crops are pollinated by the honey bee, Apis mellifera, that American beekeepers house in familiar Langstroth bee hives. However, one crop, alfalfa, an important animal food crop and the principal hay crop for dairy cattle, is largely pollinated by another bee species. When alfalfa is grown to produce seed, the alfalfa leafcutting bee, Megachile rotundaata, may be brought into the fields to ensure adequate pollination for the production of seed. The alfalfa plant, a member of the legume family, produces ample amounts of nectar and pollen and is attractive to honey bees. However, honey bees don’t like foraging alfalfa due to the physical structure of alfalfa flowers. When a honey bee forager attempts to access alfalfa nectar or pollen, the flower slaps the bee’s face with considerable mechanical force.

The reluctance of honey bees to forage alfalfa makes the alfalfa leafcutting bee a favorable choice especially for alfalfa seed production where ample insect visits are necessary for pollination. Alfalfa leafcutting bees are not social bees like honey bees; they are solitary. Honey bees live in large colonies housed in wooden hives. Gregarious alfalfa leafcutting bees are solitary bees; large numbers of beekeeper-managed solitary bees live in close proximity in tubes bored into wood or plastic boards. The alfalfa leafcutting bee nesting tubes shown in today’s photo are cut into blocks of polystyrene. Adult leafcutting bees are emerging from some blocks. Other blocks with empty tubes are available for leafcutting bees to occupy. After mating, a female leafcutting bee cuts leaf material and carries it to an available tube where she deposits an egg along with pollen and nectar to feed the developing offspring. A large amount of chewed leaf matter is visible under the leafcutting bee hive blocks.

--Richard

Pollination by Honey Bees

Half of the managed honey bee hives in the United States are in California in February for almond pollination. California maintains a large beekeeping business, and it receives many truckloads of bee hives from across the country. This huge movement of hundreds of thousands of hives full of live honey bees is one of modern agriculture’s greatest accomplishments. California leads the world in the production of almonds, nuts prized for their taste and as a healthy food. However, almond trees require pollination by bees. It is bluntly stated that an almond tree without honey bees is merely a shade tree. The pollination of almonds and numerous other crops is accomplished by migratory beekeepers who move their bee hives around the country by truck. Honey bees are ideally suited for migratory pollination service due to their behavior. Honey bees, living in large colonies, can be safely trucked in durable wooden Langstroth hives. The honey bee exhibits a foraging behavior known as “flower constancy” in which individual bees forage from the same plant species as long as the plant is secreting nectar or producing pollen. Charles Darwin described this behavior which makes the honey bee an efficient crop pollinator since only pollen from the same species of plant is transferred among flowers. Migratory beekeeping provides the pollination necessary for over ninety food crops, amounting to one third of our human diet.

Moving hives is stressful on the bees, leaving colonies vulnerable to both new and existing honey bee diseases. Some migratory beekeepers experienced great numbers of colony losses. They were the first to detect Colony Collapse Disorder. Some of these beekeepers are also on the forefront of efforts to manage healthy honey bee colonies by culling old honeycombs, limiting chemical uses, and seeking genetically resistant honey bee stock. While moving bee hives around the country spreads pests and pathogens, the movement distributes honey bee genes, a benefit to beekeeping. In today’s picture, Squeaker, our 25-year-old parrot, enjoys her favorite treat, an almond.

--Richard

Our Food

Melissa Petersen is the editor of Edible Memphis magazine, http://www.ediblecommunities.com/memphis/, a quarterly devoted to building connections between farmers, food artisans, and the community. Melissa spoke to the Memphis Herb Society about the food we eat, what it takes to bring it to the table, and what it means to us. She described how our food is so much more than nourishment for our bodies. We use food to celebrate special family events. Certain foods bring back special memories. Many of those who buy our honey at farmers markets relate to us that their grandfathers kept honey bees. Others seek comb honey because they have nostalgic memories of eating honeycomb as a child after family members robbed a bee tree. The Herb Society members know that cooking often involves preparing foods using home-grown herbs for special occasions. Melissa reminded the audience that bringing food to the table requires hard work from numerous individuals. Preparing food in a commercial kitchen involves long, busy, hot, hours, by a team of dedicated workers. Beekeepers recognize the commitment involved in harvesting honey in the summer. Honey supers are heavy; protective bee suits are hot; and some guard bees always find exposed skin.

Mary Phillips, who worked with us at Peace Bee Farm, is featured in the Memphis Commercial Appeal: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/jun/24/farm-fresh/. Mary is helping bring fresh food to inner-city areas known as “food deserts.” In parts of some cities it is said to be easier to buy a handgun than a fresh apple. Mary is helping correct this by managing a midtown farmers market, helping community gardens, and building raised-bed backyard vegetable gardens. She is also teaching farming at a girls’ school. Mary says that food “transcends all barriers—class, gender, race, and age.” In our recent travels, we encountered a food coop in Spokane, Washington, featured in today’s photo. See http://www.mainmarket.coop/. Without pollination from the honey bee, the only pictured food available to us is the bread and the macaroni noodles in the soup.

--Richard

Moscow, Idaho Farmers Market

The honey bee is our most important crop pollinator. The honey bee accomplishes about 85 percent of the pollination of our flowering plants. The remaining 15 percent of the work is done by many species of native bees, bumblebees, butterflies, moths, birds, bats, and various other insects. In the absence of these pollinators, humans can move grains of pollen from the anther of one flower to the stigma of a similar flower on another plant. Bees pollinate about 90 of our food crops, one third of our diet. If pollination is not accomplished, there is no fruit or seed produced. However, this is usually not the case in nature. Even where there is a shortage of bees, some flowers are visited. The result of insufficient numbers of bee visits is often seen in misshapen fruit. Cucumbers, watermelons, and pumpkins only fill out in nice, plump shapes when the flowers are visited by plenty of bees.

Rita and I made a visit to the state of Washington to see Wes. The three of us visited the farmers market at Moscow, Idaho. Like farmers markets across the country, the Moscow market was quite popular on a Saturday morning. People gathered to buy fresh farm produce, meet the farmers, and enjoy a sense of community with friends. We found beautiful, fully developed fruit and vegetables from the rich farmland of Washington and Idaho. There were colorful and fragrant apples, pears, and plums as well as bright pumpkins, tomatoes, squash, gourds, and peppers. At the market, we visited with some Washington beekeepers who have a family farm that transports bees for pollination service from California through Oregon and Washington. After trucking their bees for pollination, they bring them home to strengthen the hives on fields of canola. We purchased some of their light and mild knapweed, or star thistle, honey. We also bought some of their buckwheat honey, black and strong with an aftertaste, a honey enjoyed by only a select few.

--Richard

Wildlife Corridors

For any form of wildlife to exist in an area, the animals require food, water, some form of protective cover, and adequate space. Most warm-bloodied animals must have a continuous supply of food to provide energy for motion and to maintain body heat. I encountered a number of the large mammals on my recent travel through the American West. While some warm-blooded animals, like bears, hibernate in the winter, other animals migrate from one location to another to obtain food throughout the year. To allow for the long migrations of these animals, individuals and agencies are establishing corridors for the animals to safely travel. One of these corridors involves Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, and the lands connecting the parks. These corridors allow elk, bison, pronghorn antelope, mountain goats, and bighorn sheep to pass between areas that otherwise would be wildlife islands. The wildlife food is comprised principally grasses, but also includes browse of twigs and wildflowers. I observed a mule deer consume large amounts of flowering plants, pollinated by solitary native bees. Today’s picture shows a bison dominating a road in Yellowstone National Park. Bison use their massive head and their shoulder muscles to dig into deep snow to find plant material. Its presence is evidence of the results of years of conservation efforts.

Cold-blooded animals have an advantage in that they can survive in an area that does not have a continuous supply of food. The animal’s body temperature remains the same as its surroundings. Fish, reptiles, amphibians, and insects are cold-blooded creatures. The honey bee is a unique insect that can generate body heat. It derives energy to produce this heat from eating honey which it gets from flowering plants. The bees pollinate the plants and assist in their reproduction. The flowering plants contribute greatly to the food available for wildlife. The wildlife corridors make for greatly enhanced habitat and forage areas for animals, large and small. Animals from bison to bees benefit.

--Richard

Mississippi Hoe-Down

The Mississippi State Master Gardeners held their annual conference with an entertaining hoe-down theme. I feel most honored that they invited me to speak. My presentation to the Master Gardeners involved the important role honey bees and other pollinators play in producing our food. I explained that the pollinators are declining in number as a result of changes to their environment, often man-made. Urbanization, with people spreading into remote areas, often leads to loss of pollinator habitat and diminished forage areas. Agriculture, home lawns, and golf courses employ large quantities of pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers. These chemicals, along with the residues of chemicals used in the past, tend to weaken the bees as they build up in the honeycomb. The type of industrial agriculture practiced on the large farms further lessens the available pollinator habitat and forage. Instead of agricultural fields having a weedy margin suitable for solitary bees to nest, fields are sometimes plowed to the edge of paved roads. Monoculture, or the planting of a single species of plant, is typical in large-scale modern agriculture. A lack of diversity of plants for the pollinators to forage leads to nutritional stress for the pollinators. World trade and transportation accidentally bring unwanted plants and pathogens from distant locations and spread them rapidly. Trade brought parasitic mites, viruses, small hive beetles, and the latest strain of Nosema disease to this country.

Facing these threats to the pollinators, I offered the Master Gardeners a solution to rapidly help correct the shortage in pollinator habitat and forage. I suggested that these Master Gardeners direct their efforts to building pollinator gardens; they love to plant. These are plantings that provide pollinator food and habitat. A requirement is that pesticides are used prudently. I suggested that plants for the pollinator gardens be chosen from several families of plants that produce nectar and pollen: the composites, mints, mustards, roses, legumes, snapdragons, and magnolias. Thanks, Mississippi, Rita and I enjoyed the Hoe-Down. Today’s photo: honey bee foraging groundsel.

--Richard

Asparagus in Bloom

When the young shoots are picked fresh from the home garden, asparagus is a spring-time treat. Shoots which rise daily from underground tubers are picked daily for a short period. After a few weeks of eating the vegetable shoots cooked with butter and raw in salads, the asparagus plants are left to grow into lacy four-foot tall plants. It is important to stop harvesting the shoots to allow the plants to strengthen the tubers through photosynthesis. The asparagus plants will also produce tiny bell-shaped flowers that are quite attractive to honey bees. If you click on the photo, you can see how the honey bees have to learn to hang under the pale yellow-green flowers to access the pollen inside. This forager’s pollen baskets are loaded with bright orange asparagus pollen.

When the bees carry pollen from plant to plant, they pollinate the plant, and small red berries are produced. The berries are eaten by song birds which distribute the seeds. When I find the lacy asparagus plants growing around the farm, I dig up the tubers, or crowns, and move them to raised, mulch-filled planting beds. Asparagus feeds heavily, and it takes about three years for the roots to mature to the point of being able to support a modest harvest of shoots. By the time that I find a plant, the tuber is quite well developed. I have located the lacy foliage of an asparagus plant growing next to an old disk harrow. I’ll move the crown next winter and harvest some shoots in the spring. There is an interesting relationship between the pollination of this vegetable by honey bees, its serving as a food for wildlife, its distribution by songbirds, and its use by humans for food. Asparagus is perennial plant in the lily family, related to onions and garlic. I consider it a delicacy, and I thank the honey bees for helping to propagate it. They are only concerned with collecting the nectar and pollen.

--Richard

Fruit Trees in Bloom

The spring of the year sees a continuous series of fruit trees coming into bloom. The blooming season begins in California with almond trees. Almonds are one of the nation’s major agricultural export crops, and the nuts can only be produced after the trees are pollinated by honey bees. It is said that an almond tree without bees is merely a shade tree. In the Mid-South we will see plums, pears, peaches, cherries, apples, and crabapples in bloom. Each of these trees, even the almonds, is a member of the roses, an important family of bee plants. The rose family, which also includes the flowering roses, hawthorns, blackberries, and bramble vines, provides large amounts of nectar and pollen for honey bees. The fruit trees provide food for the bees in the form of nectar and pollen, and the bees serve the trees by pollinating their flowers. As the bees move about the flower blossoms, they inadvertently carry pollen from flower to flower and tree to tree. This is a necessary step in the production of fruit and seed.

Click on today’s photo to see a honey bee collecting pollen from a pear tree blossom. Bright yellow pollen from the flower’s anthers adheres to the hairy body of the honey bee. When she touches the sticky stigma of a pear flower, the tree produces fruit and seeds. Honey bees are the greatest pollinator of agricultural food crops because they live in large colonies which can be transported to the crops needing pollination. Honey bees also exhibit a behavior known as flower constancy, which means that bees foraging on a species of plant will continue to visit that same plant as long as it stays in bloom and produces an attractive reward to the bees. Beekeepers pollinating pears coordinate their efforts with the orchard owners because the pear nectar is relatively weak in sugar content and may not be as attractive to the honey bees as other nearby plants in bloom.

--Richard

The Cupboard

Throughout the world, nations are striving to improve people’s diet by increasing the variety of available foods. Much of the world lives on a diet based upon grains: rice, wheat, barley, sorghum, oats, and maize or corn. These plants are grasses which produce seed when they are pollinated by the wind. The world produces large volumes of foods derived from these grasses, but they often lead to a bland, starchy, and less than complete diet. As people try to move toward more nutritious and flavorful foods, farmers are growing increasing amounts of fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Many nations are also increasing the consumption of meats derived from domestic animals. In most cases the fruits, nuts, and vegetables are the product of flowering plants and trees which require insect pollination. The animal feed used to commercially produce domestic animals is also based upon insect pollination to produce the plants’ seeds. When we eat a hamburger or piece of beef or chicken, it comes from animals that were likely fed clover or alfalfa. The seeds for each of these legumes require pollination from bees. Almond nuts, one of the United States’ rapidly increasing agricultural export crops, require honey bee pollination. Human food crops are requiring greater numbers of pollinating insects. However, the pollinators are not increasing to meet the growing worldwide demand. Many of the bees and native pollinators are actually declining in numbers.

The Cavallo family has been showcasing traditional Southern cooking in Memphis since 1943 at their restaurant, The Cupboard. The offerings at The Cupboard, which specializes in fresh vegetables, are the very items that we can thank the honey bees and native pollinators for helping to produce. Without bees we would not have their eggplants, Crowder peas, turnip greens, and fried green tomatoes. Jereme Cavallo and Dory Sellers of The Cupboard visited Peace Bee Farm. That’s Dory in the bee suit. We are proud that The Cupboard chooses to offer our Delta honey to their loyal customers.
--Richard

Pollination Guelph

Guelph, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada is making a name for itself by establishing the world’s first large habitat dedicated specifically to pollinators. The city of Guelph is building a 112 acre pollinator park on an abandoned landfill site, quite an imaginative re-use of land previously used to collect trash. The Canadian city recognizes the importance of pollinators and is creating a demonstration project to show how pollinator plantings can be created on either large or small scale. The Guelph project is intended to raise awareness of the role of pollinators and to teach pollinator-friendly planting techniques. Information about activities at Guelph is available at http://www.pollinator.ca/guelph/.

With spring approaching, this is a good time to consider making any gardening or landscape planting an area to support pollinators. Very few modifications from traditional planting techniques are necessary. To be of great value to the pollinators, the planting should be planned to provide a continuous succession of blooming plants. A diversity of plants also helps assure that the honey bees, bumble bees, carpenter bees, solitary bees, and other insect pollinators receive good nutrition. Nesting habitat for bumble bees and ground-burrowing solitary bees can be provided by providing some bare, sandy soil. For a planting to be of use to pollinators, one should be cautious in the use of chemical pesticides. Today’s picture shows one of our native pollinators, the blue orchard bee. Here, it is seen pollinating a watermelon flower. Watermelon is one of the plants that is completely dependent upon insect pollinators to produce fruit. To provide nesting places for blue orchard bees, hang bundles of pithy-centered reeds or leave standing dead tree trunks. These solitary bees lay eggs in the hollow-stems of plants and abandoned beetle holes in dead trees. One third of our diet depends upon pollination from insects. The honey bee is the principal agricultural pollinator. Its natural home is a cavity in a hollow tree. Beekeepers house the honey bee in modern wooden hives that replicate hollow trees.
--Richard

Flower Constancy

The great observer of the natural world, Charles Darwin, spent a lifetime making observations and meticulously recording his notes. Much of his observations involved honey bees. One of the observations that he recorded is the bee behavior known as flower constancy. Individual honey bees will continue to forage on the same species of plant as a source of nectar or pollen as long as the plant produces a reward to the bee. A honey bee will move from flower to flower of the same species even though there may be other plants in bloom. Other bees from the same hive may forage other species of plants. Continuing to work the same species of plant makes the honey bee the most effective and efficient pollinator for agricultural crops. Click on today’s photo. A foraging honey bee moves from one perennial sunflower to another, exhibiting flower constancy. On the left side of the photo, we see a carpenter bee that has just left the sunflower in the center flying to nearby goldenrod flowers in the background. Many solitary native pollinators, like the carpenter bee, do not exhibit flower constancy.

At a given time, one hive may have nectar and pollen being brought in from numerous flowering plant species. In their foraging habits, individual honey bees do not collect both nectar and pollen. Certain bees from a colony will collect nectar and other bees from that colony will collect pollen, even if it is from the same plant. A bee that is collecting pollen will continue to collect pollen throughout the day. When beekeepers trap pollen that the bees are bringing into the hive, we can see that each colony has its own pattern of collecting pollen. On the same day, the bees in one hive may bring in green, brown, and black colored pollen while the bees in an adjacent hive will be bringing in yellow and orange colored pollen. Charles Darwin’s complete works are available online at: http://darwin-online.org.uk/
--Richard

Beggar's Lice in Bloom

Both humans and wildlife depend greatly upon the honey bee to pollinate plants so that they can produce fruit and seeds. Many game and songbirds consume a diet primarily comprised of seeds. One of the plants that provide large quantities of seed for quail and turkey is beggar’s lice, or tick trefoil. This common plant of wood margins is well-known by all who spend time outdoors in the late fall. The seeds of beggar’s lice are sticky triangles that adhere to clothing. Beggar’s lice has a very effective method of transporting its seeds to other locations. The seeds stick to the fur of mammals which may carry them great distances. Not only do numerous birds eat beggar’s lice seeds, the plant is readily browsed by deer. The beggar’ lice plant is a low vine with three leaves and a pink flower. Beggar’s lice belongs to the important bee plant family, the legumes. Other legumes include soybeans, clovers, vetch, redbud trees, and cultivated beans and peas. Throughout the summer, the beggar’s lice plant is a lush, low vine with three leaves, pink flowers, and developing seed pods. The plant clearly resembles the peas of the legume family. In the late fall, after the leaves have fallen from the vine, the plant seems to have disappeared. The only evidence of the plant is the lines of seeds clinging tightly to ones clothes.

Some of the nature trails that I maintain through the woods in Peace Farm are lined with beggar’s lice. This legume performs an important role in feeding a number of wildlife species; and, through pollination, the honey bee plays an important role in reproducing the plant and producing its seed as wildlife food. I’ll try to remember that while I’m picking hundreds of seeds off my clothes after a hike through the woods this fall.
--Richard

Milkweed in Bloom

Milkweed is an important bee plant that provides both nectar and pollen. It is also well known as being the sole source of larva food for the beautiful monarch butterfly. This common, climbing vine is attractive to a number of different species of insects. The plant that I encountered on the disturbed margin of a clover field was being visited by numerous monarchs as well as honey bees and native solitary bees. Click on the photo to see a foraging honey bee approaching a cluster of milkweed flowers. Pollination of milkweed is accomplished by insects, but the procedure is slightly different from that of most other flowering plants. Milkweed pollen is held in pollen sacs instead of individual grains. These are located in slits in the flower’s anthers. When an insect steps into a slit, a pair of pollen sacs is attached to the insect; and pollination occurs when the insect steps into the anther slit of another flower.

Milkweed is a plant of varied folk medicine and cultural uses. After being pollinated by an insect, the fertilized milkweed produces seed, covered in fine filaments and held in a pod. The seeds are distributed by the wind. The filaments provide greater insulation than down feathers. Native Americans collected milkweed nectar as a sweetener. The sticky, white sap of milkweed is used as a folk remedy for removal of warts. It is applied several times a day until the wart falls off. Milkweed sap is used in another folk remedy as an effective treatment of poison ivy rashes. The milkweed plant is toxic; animals eating one tenth their body weight in milkweed may die. Milkweed is an interesting plant that is often included in pollinator gardens. Many gardeners welcome milkweed to support the bees and the monarch butterflies.
--Richard

Passion Flower in Bloom

The passion flower is truly one of the showiest of all of the wildflowers. A break in the rain found the flowers of this climbing vine being worked heavily by honey bees as well as a number of different species of solitary bees. The honey bees climbed into the pale purple bloom and collected pollen while hanging upside down from the large exposed anthers. As the bees groom the abundant pollen from their hairy bodies, they brush some onto the sticky surface of the flower’s stigma. This transfer of pollen is a necessary step in the reproduction of the passion flower. After pollination, it produces its fruit, a lemon-sized berry called a maypop. Inside the maypop are seeds which are favored by songbirds, particularly bobwhite quail. The honey bee helps provide food for wildlife by pollinating plants.

The passion flower is an herbal remedy used to treat sleep disorders and to relieve pain. Its aerial foliage is collected for this herbal use. Passion flower is a native of the southern United States as well as Central and South America. Click on the photo to see one honey bee grooming pollen onto its honey baskets while two others arrive to forage. The honey bee on the left already has a partial load of pollen in its pollen baskets located on the hind legs. This beautiful plant clearly illustrates how flowering plants attract bees and as a result get reproduced.
--Richard

Corn Produces Pollen

Honey bees are attracted to the flowering plants, and they collect nectar and pollen from them. The attraction of the bees is part of a mutually beneficial relationship that the flowering plants and the bees share. The bees gain food, and the flowering plants are pollinated, a necessary step in their reproduction. The bees are generally not attracted to the grasses, though. The grasses reproduce by wind pollination and do not need insects to carry the pollen. One grass does attract honey bees at times, and the plant is corn. Honey bees may be seen flying down rows of corn. As the bees fly, their hairy bodies take on an electrostatic charge. Flying among the tassels of corn plants, the pollen jumps onto the hairs of the bees’ bodies. Back at the hive, the corn pollen, along with other pollens, is mixed with honey to make bee bread to be feed to the brood. A diverse diet of pollens makes for good nutrition for the developing bees. Pollen contains protein, vitamins, minerals, and fats, or lipids. While the honey bees bring some corn pollen into the hive, corn produces no nectar; so there is no honey made from corn.

In the photo we can see broom corn being grown as produce at Whitton Farms in the foreground. In the distance, beyond the Peace Bee Farm bee hives that pollinate the Whitton produce and flowers, you can see a large field of corn. This variety of corn seen in the distance is most likely to produce grain to be converted into ethanol for fuel. To see more about the activity at Whitton Farms, visit their web site, http://whittonfarms.com/.
--Richard

Food Crops Need Honey Bees

At least 90 of our food crops require insects to pollinate the plants in order to produce their fruits, nuts, or seeds. These crops make up about one third of our human diet. From farms pollinated by honey bees we get apples, pears, plums, almonds, watermelons, pumpkins, cucumbers, blueberries, and many other foods. Honey bees also pollinate the alfalfa and clover fields to produce forage for beef and dairy cattle. The major foods that we eat that do not require insect pollination are corn, wheat, oats, and rice. These are each grasses, which are pollinated by the wind and don’t require insects for pollination.

The honey bee is the preferred pollinator of most food crops. There are several reasons why the honey bee accomplishes at least 85 percent of our food pollination. The honey bee lives in large, social colonies which can be housed in durable wooden hives and transported from place to place on trucks. The bees don’t naturally die off annually, instead they maintain permanent colonies. Also, as Charles Darwin observed, the honey bees continue foraging on a single species of plant. This behavior, called flower constancy, makes the honey bee an effective crop pollinator. Foraging in the same species of plants distributes the appropriate pollen to the stigma of the receiving flower, thus accomplishing pollination. In the photo, we see field peas in bloom and producing the protein-rich seeds which we eat. The peas, like beans and peanuts, are members of the important family of bee plants, the legumes. These staples in our diet rely upon honey bees for pollination. For information about how we can help protect the pollinators that we rely on to produce our food, visit the web site of the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign at: http://www.nappc.org/pollinatorEn.html.
--Richard

Coreopsis in Bloom

Throughout the spring, summer, and fall there is a progression of yellow wildflowers. Coming into bloom now is tickseed coreopsis, a member of the important bee plant family, the composites. Tickseed coreopsis has bright yellow petals surrounding a reddish-brown center. The composites are the sunflowers. The composites are among the largest families of flowering plants, making up one tenth of the world’s plant species. There are 25 thousand composites, including dandelion, chicory, lettuce, and chrysanthemum. They contribute both nectar and pollen to the honey bees. It seems that the honey bees in the Arkansas Delta use coreopsis primarily as a source of pollen. A diverse number of pollen sources are important for good honey bee nutrition. Click on the photo to see the honey bee with pollen covering its legs and hairy body. The bee will rake the pollen from its body, mix it with some honey from her honey gut, and pack it on her pollen baskets on her hind legs. She will then be ready to fly back to her hive.

There will not be another yellow flower in place in great numbers until the coreopsis has completed its colorful showing. Not only have the flowering plants evolved with attracting schemes of color, shape, infrared nectar guides, fragrance, and taste for the pollinators, they also have a time-sharing scheme to help insure their pollination. By not competing with other yellow flowers at this time of year, the coreopsis helps insure its pollination and seed production for next year’s plants. The honey bees and flowering plants have always benefited each other.
--Richard

Magnolia in Bloom

Throughout southern landscapes we find magnificent magnolia trees in bloom. These native trees of the Deep South are favored in lawns for the dark green, waxy leaves and large, fragrant blossoms. At times, magnolias escape cultivation and can be found in woodlots. The magnolia family contains a number of flowering magnolia trees as well as the important bee plant, the tuliptree, or yellow poplar.

When we examine magnolia blossoms, we see that they contain large amounts of pollen. Pollen is important for the diet of honey bees in that it provides protein as well as fats, vitamins, and minerals. After pollination, the magnolia produces seed contained in a red berry, a favorite of a number of song birds and squirrels. The honey bee plays an important role in providing food for wildlife by pollinating flowering plants.
--Richard

Master Gardeners and Honey Bees

The Arkansas Master Gardeners held their annual convention in West Memphis. About 500 Master Gardeners from across the state gathered in this Delta city located on the Mississippi River levee. I was honored to be asked to speak at the convention. My presentation involved bees and the environment, a topic that I feel greatly affects us all. The more we get to understand the relationship between the pollinators and humans, the better we can protect these important creatures. I explained the role of honey bees and the native pollinators in producing one third of our diet by pollinating our crops. I also mentioned that there is a decline in the numbers of all of the pollinators, bees, other insects, birds, and bats. I encouraged the Master Gardeners to continue to act as advocates for the prudent use of chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. I encouraged them to continue using integrated pest management techniques in the garden and to avoid broad-spectrum insecticides. I especially cautioned these masters to prevent the formation of environmental niches which will be filled by pests. We see these niches being formed when beneficial insects are killed off, often by indiscriminate spraying of pesticides. This well-informed audience of Master Gardeners asked about the effects of the systemic insecticides on the bees. I explained that these new nerve toxins are still suspect as contributing to the decline in honey bees around the world. I encouraged all to contribute to the solution to the loss of pollinators be creating their own pollinator garden. These are simple plots of ground planted without the use of chemicals that injure or kill the important insects. They may be back-yard vegetable gardens, herb gardens, flower gardens, window boxes, or merely landscape plantings.

In today’s photo, I am placing a swarm of honey bees on a stand in the bee yard. These are the same bees that were shown swarming in yesterday’s posting. The bees cover the sides of the hive body. Following the pheromones of their queen, the bees soon migrated into the box and down the frames. Within minutes, the colony was established in its new hive.
--Richard