Maybe we don't need Honeybees so much...

[Roadrunner]

I've noticed in my garden I have a lot of honeybees, but also many different types of native bees, but not sure if I've seen any other non-native exotic bees as shown in the video, and yes, some were really, really big.

Kind of want to go to the library and start putting names to all the pollinators I see. BTW, I've known about bees using us as salt licks, during my hike of the Appalachian Trail in the summer months I'd have tons of bumblebees, carpenter bees and various sweat bees land on me and I could see them sapping sweat with a tongue-like organ.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...875011896.html There's also a video and a slide show on this link.


Urban Buzz: A New Bee That Sips Sweat
Native Insects Getting Closer Look; Humans as 'Salt Lick'.


NEW YORK—A new bee is buzzing in Brooklyn: The tiny insect, the size of a sesame seed, sips the sweet nectar of the city—sweat.

"They use humans as a salt lick," said entomologist John Ascher, who netted the first known specimen of the species in 2010 while strolling in Brooklyn's Prospect Park near his home. "They land on your arm and lap up the sweat."

North America is home to thousands of species of native bees. But they have long been overshadowed by imported honeybees, prized for their honey and beeswax since the time of the Pharaohs and a mainstay of commercial agriculture. Now, native bees are generating serious buzz.

For Mr. Ascher, 41 years old, nothing quite brightens the day like a new box of unidentified bees landing on his desk from some distant glade. So puzzling was the greenish-blue city bee he netted, though, that it took Mr. Ascher, who oversees a digital catalog of 700,000 bee specimens at the American Museum of Natural History, months to pinpoint its proper place in the insect kingdom.

In the end, only DNA testing by sweat bee specialist Jason Gibbs at Cornell University could identify its niche. Last November, they announced the discovery of Lasioglossum gotham, in a peer-reviewed journal called Zootaxa. The newbie joined the growing catalog of easily overlooked wild native bees.

Sweat bees don't have a high profile outside academic circles. Unlike honeybees, which were originally imported from Europe, native bees don't make much honey. To their credit, though, sweat bees rarely sting; their occasional pinprick registers a one on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, the lowest on the four-point scale. (Bullet ants and the tarantula hawk wasp rate a four.)

These bees prefer sweaty people—over most animals—because the human diet usually is so salty that their perspiration is saturated with the essential nutrient, experts said. Yet most people never notice when the tiny bees alight on a bare arm or leg.

As it turns out, Mr. Ascher and his colleagues are discovering New York City is a hive of activity.

By latest count, about 250 species of native bees are known to nest in sidewalk cracks, traffic median strips, parks, and high-rise balcony flower pots—more perhaps than any other major city in the world, several entomologists said. In Prospect Park alone, at least 90 species of native bees flit from flower to flower among the park's sun-dappled golden rod, dandelions and dogwood.

"For certain species, the city is as good as or better than a natural area," Mr. Ascher said.

Hovering around city parks and flower beds are masked bees, miner bees, mason bees, plasterer bees, cuckoo bees, leafcutter bees, horned bees, and at least 49 species of sweat bees. "We routinely see bees 30 stories up in window gardens," Mr. Ascher said. A local bumblebee has even been spotted on the observation deck of the Empire State Building.

Sweat bees often live unobtrusively.

"You can have sweat bees nesting in your front yard and never know it," because they are so small and mild-mannered, said Cornell's Mr. Gibbs. "Hundreds can nest in a square meter of lawn."

As an urban wilderness, New York City continues to surprise field biologists. Not so long ago, museum bug hunters discovered a new genus of centipedes—perhaps the world's smallest—under the fallen leaves in Central Park. In 2009, a new species of cockroach turned up in a West Side supermarket. Earlier this year, researchers at Rutgers University and the University of California identified a previously unknown species of leopard frog whose natural range centers on Yankee Stadium.

The discovery of this new sweat bee species—which belongs to a large family of bee species that depend on human perspiration for salt to survive—highlights the importance of the thousands of native bee species in pollinating plants, flowers and fruits.

Sweat bees aren't ready to swarm into the commercial workplace. But other native bees are gaining scientific attention at a time when honeybee hives are plagued by myriad problems that threaten their survival.

"We've neglected the native bees because the honey bee was so successful," said entomologist Anne Averill at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst who is conducting a $3.3 million federal study of native bees in 10 states. They hope to expand the role of native bees in agriculture.

Not a single native plant in North or South America actually needs a honeybee to survive, so long as native bees thrive, museum and university entomologists said. Untended and largely unnoticed, native bees play a role in pollinating cash crops such as tomatoes, cranberries, alfalfa and squash. They are more prevalent among farmers' fields than previously believed, often more effective than honeybees as pollinators and more resistant to the problems that have decimated honeybees in the U.S. and Europe, several studies show.

Unlike many honeybees, urban bees in the Northeastern U.S. have adapted to rising temperatures, which have caused spring—and the first bloom of flowers for pollination—to arrive about 10 days earlier in recent years, Rutgers University researchers said.

It isn't easy keeping track of so many bees.

Sweat bees encompass an unusually broad range of behaviors, but often differ from each other in almost imperceptible ways. All that distinguishes the Gotham sweat bee from its most closely related species is the pattern of bristles on its abdomen and a few links of DNA. They are so hard to tell apart that agriculture experts world-wide are hard-pressed to take stock of them all.

"If there is a new bee species in New York, imagine the situation...somewhere in South America," said Mr. Ascher. "It is hard to effectively manage pollinators if they have not been named scientifically."

At the American Museum of Natural History, Mr. Ascher and his colleagues scramble to keep up with requests to catalog unidentified bee species. Museum corridors are a honeycomb of bee boxes and specimen drawers packed with 450,000 preserved bees.

Almost every day new native bee specimens arrive in the mail.

"We are finding out these things at a fast pace," Mr. Ascher said. "I just got another box of bees and there was a new species in Queens."

[BalconyFarmer]

When the varroa mites first hit the honey bee population back in the 90's, I noticed a big drop in honey bees early in the season, then a surge of smaller, native bees and bumble bees later in the season. I also noticed a substantial drop in yields that summer.

European honey bees are the most efficient pollinators we have. They usually out-compete other pollinators for the most prolific nectar sources, so when honey bees suffer, other pollinators will increase to occupy the niche, but they'll never reach the population density of honey bees. Healthy honey bee hives reach numbers of 50,000 + bees.

Orchard mason bees and many native bees are solitary, and bumble bee hives are a fraction of the size of honey bee hives. Honey bees can also survive through the winter, so they're able to pollinate early vegetables. Bumblebees have to reconstitute the hive from a single queen every spring, and native bees also take some time for populations to increase, so honey bees are still critical for gardeners and farmers alike.

[Imp]

Still a very good article and a hopeful one to think about. Thanks for posting it, Roadrunner!

[peapicker]

Nice read Roadrunner
I hardly ever see a honey bee in my vegetable garden,only small bees and bumble bees
Honey bees by the thousands do flock to the hollies,elaeagnus and chinese tallow trees in early spring

[Roadrunner]

Originally Posted by BalconyFarmer

When the varroa mites first hit the honey bee population back in the 90's, I noticed a big drop in honey bees early in the season, then a surge of smaller, native bees and bumble bees later in the season. I also noticed a substantial drop in yields that summer.

European honey bees are the most efficient pollinators we have. They usually out-compete other pollinators for the most prolific nectar sources, so when honey bees suffer, other pollinators will increase to occupy the niche, but they'll never reach the population density of honey bees. Healthy honey bee hives reach numbers of 50,000 + bees.

Orchard mason bees and many native bees are solitary, and bumble bee hives are a fraction of the size of honey bee hives. Honey bees can also survive through the winter, so they're able to pollinate early vegetables. Bumblebees have to reconstitute the hive from a single queen every spring, and native bees also take some time for populations to increase, so honey bees are still critical for gardeners and farmers alike.

I don't know, I'm no expert, to say the least. However, I do know that we know very little about the natural world, just from my humble observations.

I don't doubt that honeybees are wonderful pollinators, but they're also woderful at collecting pollen for their own use, i.e. keeping them to themselves and not having a chance to do what its suppose to do -- fertilze a flower.

Everyone has seen honeybees with large clumps of pollen on their legs, but that is purposely collected to be taken back to the hive for their use. Whereas with other pollinators we don't really see the pollen on them without the help of technology as in this photo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ep...e-up_(aka).jpg

But I'm not making an argument, I simply don't know enough, but I'm skeptical of just how much we know about this. It reminds me of many other stories that play out all the time showing our ignorance of the environment, here's an example

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0119120548.htm


Giant Crayfish Species Discovered Right Under Researchers' Noses

ScienceDaily (Jan. 19, 2011) — Two aquatic biologists have proven that you don't have to travel to exotic locales to search for unusual new species. They discovered a distinctive species of crayfish in Tennessee and Alabama that is at least twice the size of its competitors. Its closest genetic relative, once thought to be the only species in its genus and discovered in 1884 about 130 miles away in Kentucky, can grow almost as big as a lobster.

The researchers found their first specimen under one of the biggest rocks in the deepest part of a creek that has been a (literal) stomping ground for aquatic biologists for at least half a century. The new species is described in a paper in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.

The new crayfish belongs to the genus Barbicambarus, which in addition to being big is very distinctive. Most notably, Barbicambarus have unusual "bearded" antennae; the antennae are covered with a luxurious fringe of tiny, hair-like bristles, called setae, which enhance their sensory function.

"This isn't a crayfish that someone would have picked up and just said, 'Oh, it's another crayfish,' and put it back," said University of Illinois aquatic biologist Chris Taylor, the curator of crustaceans at the Illinois Natural History Survey and a co-discoverer of the new species with Eastern Kentucky University biological sciences professor Guenter Schuster. "If you were an aquatic biologist and you had seen this thing, because of the size and the setae on the antennae, you would have recognized it as something really, really different and you would have saved it."

Schuster first learned of the crayfish in 2009 when a colleague forwarded photos from a man who had seen the animal in Shoal Creek, a stream in southern Tennessee that ultimately drains into the Tennessee River. Schuster immediately recognized it as a member of the genus Barbicambarus, and sent the photos to Taylor, his longtime collaborator.

Both men suspected that this was a wayward member of the originally discovered species, Barbicambarus cornutus. B. cornutus had never been seen that far south, but the researchers knew that crayfish have been moved great distances in the bait buckets of itinerant fishermen or by those interested in commercially rearing crayfishes.

"I was leaning to the easiest explanation," Taylor said.

"Me too," said Schuster. "That's been going on for 50 years in the U.S., moving species around, so it would not be a surprise if that was the case."

The researchers contacted a colleague in Tennessee, who told them that a scientist with the Tennessee Valley Authority, Jeffrey Simmons, had collected a crayfish that looked like the one in the photo -- "just a couple of miles from where the original photograph we had gotten was taken," Schuster said.

That was enough to spur a hastily organized field trip to Shoal Creek.

With two other biologists, Taylor and Schuster scoured the creek for more specimens. After two hours of turning over boulders and kicking up the sediment to flush the crayfish into their seine, the researchers had found nothing out of the ordinary.

"We had worked so hard and long that we were ready to give up and find another site," Schuster said. "And we saw this big flat boulder underneath a bridge and so we said, 'OK. Let's flip this rock, just for the heck of it; this will be our last one.' And sure enough, that's where we got the first specimen." It was a big male, about twice the size of any other crayfish they had seen that day. And it had the characteristic bearded setae.

The researchers found only two specimens that day, a very small haul for nearly three hours of work. The second specimen, a female, was under a large, flat boulder that was too big for one man to lift alone in the current.

In the lab, Schuster quickly realized that the physical characteristics of the new crayfish differed in significant ways from those of B. cornutus. Taylor took tissue samples and compared the specimens' DNA to that of B. cornutus.

"And the DNA said just what the morphology said: This thing is pretty different," Taylor said.

And rare. The researchers made several more trips to the area before they were able to collect enough specimens to confirm what they already suspected: The giant crayfish of Shoal Creek was a new species. They named it Barbicambarus simmonsi, in honor of the TVA scientist who had collected the first specimen.

Later trips to the region confirmed that B. simmonsi was also present in the southern reaches of Shoal Creek, just north of where it drains into the Tennessee River in northwest Alabama.

Most people are shocked to learn that there are about 600 species of crayfish in the world, Taylor said, with more than half of those occurring north of Mexico. Alabama and Tennessee are hotspots of crayfish diversity, he said.

The discovery of a new species of crayfish in itself is not unusual, the researchers said. About two new species of crayfish are found every year in the U.S. But the discovery of a large, distinctive new species in a region that had been studied for decades is quite astounding, they said.

"We looked at museum collections around the country," Taylor said. "There were no specimens in there masquerading under a different species name. No one had found this thing and called it B. cornutus. This thing had not been seen by scientific eyes until last year."

The fact that a distinct species was overlooked for so long indicates that studies of species diversity in the U.S. are not getting adequate resources, Schuster said.

"We spend millions of dollars every year on federal grants to send biologists to the Amazon, to Southeast Asia -- all over the world looking for and studying the biodiversity of those regions," Schuster said. "But the irony is that there's very little money that is actually spent in our own country to do the same thing. And there are still lots of areas right here in the U.S. that need to be explored."

[Roadrunner]

BTW, since honeybees are so good at collecting pollen and do so in such large numbers I wonder if they are a detriment to native organisms in any way? After all, they are an introduced species, but we never hear about the adverse effects of this species...I wonder why? Instead we hear about their problems, i.e. CCD. But isn't that possibly a good thing, seeing how they're invasive. Or are we not allowed to call them invasive

[BalconyFarmer]

Originally Posted by Roadrunner

I don't doubt that honeybees are wonderful pollinators, but they're also woderful at collecting pollen for their own use, i.e. keeping them to themselves and not having a chance to do what its suppose to do -- fertilze a flower.

Everyone has seen honeybees with large clumps of pollen on their legs, but that is purposely collected to be taken back to the hive for their use. Whereas with other pollinators we don't really see the pollen on them without the help of technology as in this photo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ep...e-up_(aka).jpg

But I'm not making an argument, I simply don't know enough, but I'm skeptical of just how much we know about this. It reminds me of many other stories that play out all the time showing our ignorance of the environment, here's an example

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0119120548.htm

All bees, including bumble bees and native bees, collect pollen. Pollen provides the protein that produces more bees. Bees collect pollen in specialized hairs on their legs. They aren't "hogging the pollen for their own uses"--they're still pollinating flowers, because pollen brushes off the clumps on their legs as they move from flower to flower. Coevolution has designed the leg hairs to both collect and transfer pollen, so both the bee and the flower benefit.

Honey bees are absolutely necessary to the kind of large-scale agriculture we need to feed a population of 7 billion people. Native bees and bumble bees can't take up the slack if CCD continues to take a tole on honey bee hives.

[BalconyFarmer]

Originally Posted by Roadrunner

BTW, since honeybees are so good at collecting pollen and do so in such large numbers I wonder if they are a detriment to native organisms in any way? After all, they are an introduced species, but we never hear about the adverse effects of this species...I wonder why? Instead we hear about their problems, i.e. CCD. But isn't that possibly a good thing, seeing how they're invasive. Or are we not allowed to call them invasive

Honey bees do outcompete native bees for the most prolific nectar sources, so native bees have adapted by seeking out alternative nectar sources that are harder for honey bees to exploit, like smaller flowers.

Honey bees were introduced by the pilgrims, they were brought over on the first ships to reach our shores. Is a species still considered "invasive" after 250 years?

[Semsem]

Originally Posted by BalconyFarmer

All bees, including bumble bees and native bees, collect pollen. .

All bees except vulture bees, genus Trigona, who feed on carrion. They do not use any plant-based food, i.e., pollen.

As for honey bees being necessary, for some crops, yes. Others not so much. And others, not at all. Corn and likewise cereals: Not at all. Squash and other plants native to the Americas: Not so much. Plants native to the Old World: most often yes.

It's a balance.

And as for CCD...I thought that they determined that invertebrate iridescent virus (IIV6) and the fungus Nosema ceranae were responsible. Separate, they didn't kill bees, but together death rates were 100%?

[Eristic]

European honey bees are the most efficient pollinators we have. They usually out-compete other pollinators for the most prolific nectar sources,

This is not true. The honey bee is the most efficient collector of nectar and pollen but polination is in no way dependant on them. Ordinary flys probably take this crown. A hive of honey bees has vastly superior numbers to bumbles and the other bees as well as uniquely having a sophisticated communication system but their colony density pales into insignificence compared to all the others.

Also, if there is a better nectar source a mile or so down the road, hive bees will ignore your flowers completely but the good old bumbles will still be there doing what they do best, bumble about.