Beyond Honeybees: The Importance of Wild Bees in Farming (Ep. 22)

When you ask people to name a pollinator, honey bees are typically the first one that springs to people’s minds. As a loyal Bee’s Knees listener, you know that native bees are critical for our food supply. Recent studies, many of which we’ve talked about, have shown that the diversity and abundance of wild bee pollinators are on the decline in agricultural landscapes, which could in turn have a huge impact on our crop yields. But can managed colonies of honey bees swoop in to save the day, or harvest?

Today we’re looking at a study that found a strong connection between fruit set and flower visitation by wild bees in 41 crop systems around the world. The same study found that when it comes to honey bees, only 14% of the crop systems surveyed showed an increase in fruit set with flower visitation. The result? Native bees are actually twice as effective at pollinating crops compared to honey bees.

Managed honey bees still play an important role in pollinating our crops. This study found that the pollination by honey bees supplements, rather than substitutes for, pollination by wild bees. We need to find new ways to manage both honey bees and diverse native bee populations in order to enhance global crop yields.

Dr. Lucas Garibaldi’s work focuses on sustainable farming transitions, with an emphasis on biodiversity, healthy food production, and physical and mental well-being. He’s a professor at the National University of Río Negro in Argentina and the director of the Institute for Research in Natural Resources, Agroecology and Rural Development. Learn more about him and his work on his website.

Good to know

The big takeaway from Lucas’ study is that in more than 40 important crops grown worldwide, wild pollinators improved pollination efficiency. The fruit set was twice as high compared to that facilitated by honeybees. One way of ensuring wild bees have access to farmland is through wildflower strips, a concept we talked about in Episode 12.

Transcript

[00:00:00] In the pollinator world, is it really the honey bee versus the native bee? While honeybees are a managed species, with beekeepers the world over nurturing and managing colonies, native bees are mostly solitary, going about their daily work and lives with no human support. But when it comes to bee provided pollination services, is one better than the other?

Today we’re talking to Dr. Lucas Garibaldi. He wanted to know, with wild bee pollinators becoming less diverse, and less plentiful? Will this decrease lead to lower crop yields? Or can managed pollinators, such as honeybees, make up for the loss? You studied 41 different crops from all over the world. The general finding in simplified terms was that [00:01:00] wild pollinators did a better job than honeybees in terms of pollination efficiency.

Could you tell me what pollination efficiency means? Well, uh, in this study, it meant that the amount of visits to the flower that you need for effective pollination. So, the idea is that one species cannot replace a diverse community of bees in terms of pollination efficiency. So if you want to improve crop pollination and you want optimal pollination, you need to worry not only about abundance of one species, but also to have many different species.

How did you conduct this study and how many people were involved? Well, uh, more than 100 people were involved for more than five years, all over the world, in all the [00:02:00] continents. And basically, we measure the community of, uh, bees, but also non bee arthropods visiting flowers. And we associated who was visiting the flowers, the number of visits, and how that improved by how much, the number of pollen grains, but also the number of fruits or seeds, which is what we harvest.

So this study focused on crops and the importance of pollinators for productivity. Were there specific crops in which honeybees did a better job at pollinating? And are there some crops that need both? Well, most of the crops need both. So, honeybees are generalists. They are great. But we are asking too much for one species.

We are asking for only one species of bee to be the best pollinator of [00:03:00] all the crops in the world. So, that’s too much. It’s like If you ask for the wheat or the soybean to be the only crop and the best crops in all the soils and climates all over the world. So it’s kind of crazy what we are asking for A beautiful and wonderful bee. The honeybee. So the honeybee is a generalist bee , and it’s a very good pollinator in many crops. Especially those crops that have open flowers and that they are kind of well adapted to receive many different types of pollinators. We call them also generalist crops in terms of pollinators.

But there are many other crops that are more specific. in terms of the pollinators that they need, and the honeybees cannot pollinate them very well. For example, cocoa or oil palm and many important crops worldwide, as you can see. What was your [00:04:00] biggest takeaway from the results? One of the biggest takeaways is that dominance cannot replace diversity.

Even if you focus on a very simple function like A unique function like pollination, you need the diversity to improve that output. And however, we as humanity, we are always doing the opposite. So, we favor dominance. So, for example, in all our productive activities, for example, if we are going to focus on a crop , we are going to focus only on one species like maize, wheat, soybean.
And many plants of that species, so it’s a monoculture, so it’s dominant. If we go to forestry, it’s the same, only one species of pine or eucalyptus, and a lot of abundance, many trees of that species. If you go to cattle, it’s also the same, only one [00:05:00] species of cattle, and many, many animals. And when you go to pollination, the same concept is what we are trying to apply, so to have only one species, the honeybee and a lot of individuals of that species. And that is kind of, uh, our mindsets are related to economy of the scale. Uh, but, uh, we forget that we live in a world that It follows ecological rules and principles. And when we are managing a farm, we depend on those ecological principles. So, we need biodiversity.

Economy should take into account also ecology. So, this is something important. Where would you like to see the research go in this area? Well, we are working on restoring land for pollinators and the benefits of those lands restoration, not [00:06:00] only for pollinators itself, not only for crop production, but also to other natural contributions to people, like climate regulation, water cycle regulation, uh, prevention of soil erosion, how the diversity of birds increase, etc.

What’s your advice on how to support wild bees in farming environments? Well, wild bees have the same needs as we as humans, so wild bees, they also need food and shelter, basically. So we need to provide a place where they can build their homes, a place to nest. Many bees nest in the soil, others in trees, and we also need to provide food.

But in terms of food, in the same way as humans, bees need diversity of food. So they cannot eat only one plant species. So we need [00:07:00] the diversity of flowers throughout the breeding season and the complete season of the life cycle of the bee. I think that there is a big opportunity to create synergies between beekeepers, farmers and policy makers and the public in general, in which we can change the way that we do agriculture, cattle breeding and forestry, to improve many benefits to humanity. We should not focus only on one benefit, crop production. We should manage Complete farms, complete landscape to provide multiple services and benefits for humanity.

And we have the opportunity to do that. What a beautiful synergy Lucas believes can happen. That we can improve landscapes to benefit humanity, not a single crop or purpose. It connects with two other concepts he mentioned that I also really liked. This [00:08:00] idea from his study that dominance cannot replace diversity.

Having a lot of bees, or a lot of anything, really, cannot take the place of a wide variety of species. And how much better would the world be if the economy would take into account ecology? My thanks to Lukas for plainly connecting these issues for me. I hope they sparked new thinking for you as well. Be sure to visit the episode show notes for more details on Lukas’s study.

And that’s a wrap on season one. I’ve learned so much and had so much fun producing this show for you every month. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for your support along the way. Season 2 will kick off in February 2024, and in January, I’ll be back with a preview of what’s to come. Don’t forget to join The Hive, our twice a month newsletter, for the latest intel on Season 2.
You can do that at our website, thebeesknees.website. Until next season, keep buzzing.[00:09:00]