Who is doing the Job?
About 75% of all flowering plant species need the help of animals to move their heavy pollen grains from plant to plant for fertilization. About 1,000 of all pollinators are vertebrates such as birds, bats, and small mammals. Most pollinators (about 200,000 species) are beneficial insects such as flies, beetles, wasps, ants, butterflies, moths, and bees. Worldwide, approximately 1,300 different plants are grown for food, beverages, fibers, spices, and medicines. About 1000 of them need to be pollinated by animals. Some plants depend on a single pollinator species, and likewise, some pollinators depend on a single type of plant for food (for example, fig wasps and fig trees or monarch butterflies and milkweed plants). If one disappears, so will the other. Midges, tiny flies that live in damp, shady rainforests, are the only animals that can work their way through the complex cacao flower and pollinate it. Can you imagine a life without chocolate?
Urban sprawl, uncontrolled growth and development, farm consolidation and the establishment of more and more areas of mono culture in recreation and agriculture are all contributing factors to loss of habitat or at least to severe fragmentation and deterioration of habitat for many species including pollinators. Loss and fragmentation of habitat also leads to the disruption of migratory routes, which is evident in hummingbirds, nectar-feeding bats, and some butterflies.
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Commercial Migratory Beekeepers
When people talk or hear about honey bees, they of course think of honey. But honey has become almost a side product in today’s beekeeping industry, the main event is pollination. Commercial migratory beekeepers follow the bloom from citrus trees in Florida to almond trees in California, apple trees in Pennsylvania and blueberries in Maine. Some of the most valuable fruits, vegetables, nuts and field crops depend on insect pollination, particularly by honey bees. To name a few, 100% of almonds, 90% of apples and cultivated blueberries, 48% of peaches and 29% of oranges rely on honeybees for proper pollination. Others, to a lesser percentage include watermelons, pears, pumpkins, cucumbers, soybeans, cherries, raspberries, blackberries, cranberries and strawberries. Honeybees are needed to produce 1/3 of our food supply and the beekeeping industry represents a vital component of the US agriculture worth about $15 billion.
Complete Pollination
Only good fertilization of a plant will produce plentiful and good fruit. Insufficient pollination leads to odd shaped, inferior fruit.
Fruit from our garden, well pollinated,
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