EAST LANSING, Mich. — How many kinds of bees can the average person name? Most folks throw in the towel after spelling, quilting, honey and bumble. Julianna Tuell, a postdoctoral Michigan State University entomology researcher who studies pollinating insects, was surprised at what she found in the blueberry fields of southwestern Michigan.
Pollination is a critical step in blueberry production, and domesticated honeybees typically are put on the job. Growers rent hives that are placed near fields, giving the insects access to the flowers from which they gather nectar and spread pollen from blossom to blossom, fertilizing the year’s crop.
But growers in the heart of the state’s blueberry-growing region have been concerned about the loss of feral honeybee colonies, which made them dependent on bee colonies brought to fields by beekeepers, and they wanted to learn more about what other bees are helping to pollinate their crop.
“They were concerned that there were some (plant) cultivars that honeybees were not interested in, and they wanted to know what other options there were,” Tuell said.
So in 2004 she initiated a three-year study on 15 southwestern Michigan blueberry farms to collect, count and categorize the bees found in blueberry fields. Then colony collapse disorder began depleting domesticated honeybee populations, raising interest in the work across the agricultural community.
Researchers knew they would find native pollinators in the fields they studied because blueberries are native to Michigan. What they didn’t expect was the sheer number of bee species flitting among the blueberry blossoms.
“We found 112 species during blueberry bloom, and 166 species overall,” Tuell said. “They aren’t all visiting blueberries, but at least half of them are contributing to pollination. There’s a really wide diversity of bees across the season, with some that provide pollination during bloom and are also active later in the season.”
The research team also found seven bee species that had not previously been found as far north as Michigan. These findings, which have been published in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America, not only point to a more diverse ecosystem in the managed blueberry fields, but they also mean that growers may have more options than previously thought for pollinating their crops.
“We encourage growers to think about integrated crop pollination,” Tuell said. “The grower brings in managed bees but does things to encourage natural pollinators and modifies some practices to help beneficial insects. Growers are interested and surprised by how many bees are out there.”
Tuell and her team are funded by Project GREEEN, the plant industry initiative at MSU; MBG Marketing; and a C.S. Mott Predoctoral Fellowship in Sustainable Agriculture.
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