Crown Bees Asks: Do You Know Where Your Pollinators Are?
The awareness of the plight of the honeybee continues to grow: Colony Collapse Disorder, or the systematic die-off of Western honey bee colonies in North America, is thought to be a syndrome of monoculture, pesticides and virus-carrying mites. Honey bees pollinate over 60% of our crops; without pollination, our food source is at risk. Since the media picked up the "CCD" buzzword a few years ago, the rally to save honey bees has continued to gather momentum. (I've harped about honey bees before; I've got a soft spot for the little ladies).
Starting in the mid-2000s, researchers began looking into alternative pollination options for our commercial orchards, starting with the 4,000 species of wild bees in the United States. Dave Hunter, of Woodinville's Crown Bees, predicts a "pollination crisis", and believes there are other bees that can help to pollinate fruit, nut and other commercial crops. Hunter has been working with Cornell, Penn State, the Agricultural Research Service(ARS)/Bee Lab in Utah, and a consortium of pollination experts focused on native bees as an alternative pollinator. The purpose of Hunter's company, Crown Bees, is to help educate and encourage urban gardeners to actively raise one alternative pollinator option: the mason bee.
Mason bees are solitary, non-aggressive stinging insects native to North America (sad trombone: these bees don't produce honey). The Mason "Blue Orchard Bee" is an active pollinator in the spring (starting in late March or early April), and is being cultivated to improve the pollination of early spring fruit flowers. According to Gardening in Western Washington (an extension of Washington State University):
[The Orchard Mason Bee] is less objectionable than the honey bee as a pollinator in urban areas and should be encouraged. Efforts are being made experimentally to develop large populations of these bees to use as a supplement to honey bees for fruit pollination, much as the alfalfa leafcutting bee was developed for alfalfa seed pollination.
If you're interested in raising mason bees in your garden, you've got some local support: Crown Bees self-identifies as "your complete Mason Bee resource", providing bees, house kits, literature, even flower seeds; and Hunter speaks and teaches regularly on the topic. You can also check out Knox Cellars, based in Sammamish, who has been in the Mason Bee business since 1990. But you'd better hurry; these spring pollinators will be emerging soon. Happy Spring!
For more information call (425) 949-7954 or email info(at)crownbees.com. To sign up for Crown Bees' "Bee Mail" newsletter, click here.
