Abuzz about agriculture

It is no accident that we use the term "busy as a bee" when talking about how active and hard working someone is. Bees are, and have been, one of the hardest working and most efficient pollinators in the animal world. A well-known byproduct of their pollination efforts is, of course, honey. According to the National Honey Board (NHB), honey production in 2013 was nearly 149 million pounds in the United States and the NHB puts annual honey consumption in the U.S. at 450 million pounds.

Wyoming, however, is not what one would call a hub of honey production, mainly due to the fact that the Cowboy State does not have a lot of crops that are dependent upon insect pollination. Commercial beekeepers, however, do call Wyoming home and will supply bees for various pollination seasons in surrounding states for fruit and nut crops. Many commercial crops, in fact, depend upon the efficient pollination of bees including: apples, melons, onions, cucumbers, avocados and almonds.

To get the buzz on bees in Wyoming, the Saratoga Sun reached out to Scott Schell, Extension Entomology Specialist for the University of Wyoming Extension Office. Schell's main role in the UW Extension Office is to help with insect or arthropod diagnostics, where he works with the public to determine the species of a particular insect and give advice on how to deal with it if it is a pest.

"In Wyoming, there's probably small producers that are relying somewhat on honey bees. We do produce quite a bit of alfalfa seed up in the Bighorn Basin, but they don't use European honey bees for that. The alfalfa leafcutter bee is superior to the European honey bee for getting the seed set on alfalfa, so that's what they use there," said Schell.

Like the honey bee, the alfalfa leafcutter bee was introduced from Europe. That is where the similarities end. The leafcutter bee is not social, like the honey bee, so you won't find it sharing a hive with other leafcutter bees. Homes for these bees are often sections of plywood with several holes drilled into them to allow a place for the bees to lay their eggs.

"The leafcutter bees, they pollinate the alfalfa, gather the pollen and nectar and make a ball and then they cut leaves and stick it in those holes and provision that with the ball of pollen and nectar and the females lay an egg on it and seal it up. Then, that egg hatches and the larva develops on that provision of pollen and nectar," Schell said.

Leafcutter bees can set 15 times more alfalfa seed than their native counterparts and 10 times more seed than the European honey bee. It is because of this efficiency that the leafcutter bee is used in the Bighorn Basin and other alfalfa operations, though there is a native bee that does similar work.

Alkali bees, a ground dwelling bee native to Wyoming and the west, are also well-known pollinators of alfalfa. Much like their name suggests, these bees are fond of areas with salty soil. While not widely used in Wyoming, alkali bees are used in states such as Utah and Washington. In fact, alfalfa growers received significant help from these bees for years without realizing it until they began expanding their alfalfa fields and using pesticides.

When the production of alfalfa dropped because of those two factors, growers began working on creating conditions favorable to the alkali bee. In one place in Washington state, alfalfa and bees are farmed, literally, side by side.

"Walla Walla County in Washington state might just be the only place on Earth where you have to brake for bees," began a July 9, 2018 article from National Public Radio, "Native Bees and Alfalfa Farmers - A Seed Love Story." In Washington state, one will find patches of what appear to be barren patches of ground surrounded by fields of alfalfa. A closer look shows that they are, instead, bee beds that have been started to allow a place for the alkali bees to nest.

With more than 20 species in Wyoming, the bumblebee is another native and one that is far easier to spot with it's fuzzy body and bright colors. More adapted to the climate, the bumblebee can be seen out pollinating when the temperature is below 50 degrees while the European honey bee prefers the warmer weather.

Bumble bees are often used in commercial operations for the pollination of plants that are also native to the area, like the plants in the nightshade family which includes potatoes, tomatoes and peppers. Like other native species to Wyoming, the bumblebee dwells in the ground, often in abandoned burrows or under bunch grass. Whereas most native bees are solitary, or semi-solitary, the bumblebee is a social species that establish hives, much smaller than those of honey bees.

All of this is not to say that the European honey bee doesn't have importance in Wyoming. The honey bee is still an efficient pollinator and, in combination with native bees, make more seeds when it comes to pollinating crops. Even though Wyoming may not be huge on the production of honey, at least on the commercial level, hobby beekeepers have their own role to play on the local level.

"Certainly, having beekeepers, hobby beekeepers, that practice good husbandry ... they can help. If they maintain their colonies in a healthy state, they can help by providing pollination services within towns. Many people might have fruit trees that need pollination and also garden plants. Hobby beekeepers can provide pollination services locally, if they're doing it well," said Schell.

Amateur apiarians, of course, have their struggles. Over the last several years, both commercial and hobby beekeepers have had to deal with colony collapse disorder. While the exact cause of the disorder is still not known, some fingers have been pointed at the varroa mite-a parasite of the Asian honey bee. When the Asian honey bee was introduced into the United States, the mite hitched a ride.

Due to the fact that the European honey bee did not evolve with the varroa mite, it has no defenses against the parasitic insect.

"They also are a known vector of all the major bee diseases and they are probably the major reason why a lot of beekeepers have had major losses," Schell said. "The major ways that beekeepers can combat the varroa mites is to treat the bees with a sub-lethal dose of an insecticide that will kill the mites but not kill the bees."

According to Schell, many different insecticides have been used in the past, but the current one being used is tau-fluvalinate. With the help of management, it is likely that "domesticated" honey bee populations will not succumb to colony collapse disorder, though "feral" honey bee populations are still succeptable.

Not everyone, though, is up to the task of beekeeping, but may still be concerned about the status of both honey bees and Wyoming's native bees.

"Many times, people have a concern for what's going in the natural world and if they want to help bees, European honey bees or other native pollinators, they can do so by planting plants that provide season long flowers," said Schell.

When we belly up to the dinner table, it is not uncommon in this area to think of the hard working men and women who made that dinner possible. It's not a bad idea to do the same for the busy bees who make their own contributions to agriculture.