Department of Agriculture, Western Australia

Bee pollination benefits for berry fruit crops

Extract from Bulletin 4298: Honeybee pollination

Black currants (Ribes nigrum)

Hives per hectare:

0.5 to 0.7; 6; 3.

Nectar production:

Sugar concentration in the nectar ranged from 13.8 to 35 per cent, averaging 21.8 per cent. Sugar secreted per flower was 1.4 to 2.7 mg per day.

Honey production:

Pale; mild flavour. Pollen is greenish-grey.

Review of bee pollination benefits:

• 0.5 to 0.7 hives/ha increased fruit set by 53 to 59 per cent.
• Three hives/ha increased fruit set by 88 per cent. Nine hives/ha gave no further increase.
• Fruit production improved by cross-pollination.

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Red currants (Ribes rubrum )

Hives per hectare:

8.

Honey production:

100 to 200 kg/ha. Pale and mild in flavour. Pollen is greenish-grey.

Review of bee pollination benefits:

• 9 per cent increase in red currant yields (Czechoslovakia).

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Gooseberry (Ribes grossularia, R. hirtellum, R. uva-crispa)

Flowering:

September.

Hives per hectare:

0.5 to 2 (USSR), 3 to 3.5, 3.

Nectar production:

1.1 to 1.7 mg sugar per flower. Nectar secretion lasted for 3 to 5 days.

Honey production:

50 to 100 kg/ha. Light amber, very fine, mild flavour and aroma.

Review of bee pollination benefits:

• Honeybees increased yield by 17 per cent (Czechoslovakia).
• Does not require cross-pollination.

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Grapes (Vitis vinifera (European origin); V. labrusca (American origin) )

Hives per hectare:

10/10 ha (Qld), 1.5 to 5, 10 colonies/50 ha. Flowering occurs 5 to 7 weeks after bud burst. Most varieties are self-pollinating.

Review of bee pollination benefits:

• Increased yield by 23 to 54 per cent according to variety. (Bees were trained by soaking grape flowers in sugar syrup and feeding back to bees).
• Wind-pollinated.
• Little need for pollination.
• Honeybees are main pollinators (Northern Italy).
• Honeybees are main pollinators of variety Perlette (India).
• Honeybees were trained to visit flowers by using 0.25 L of water with 100 g of sugar with 30 to 50 g of fresh grape blossoms fed to the bees.

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Kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa (formerly A. chinensis))

Flowering:

October, November, December. Late opening flowers tend to produce small fruit. 74 per cent of late flowers were found on short terminating laterals while 85 per cent of early flowers were carried on long non-terminating laterals.

Hives per hectare:

30 to 80/10 ha (Qld); six bees per 1000 flowers (USA); 4 to 8; 8 (New Zealand). Hives need to have at least 7000 sq cm of brood at all stages, the equivalent to seven full frames of brood.

Pollination fees:

New Zealand $NZ50 to 75 (1985); $NZ91 per hive (1988). From 1971 to 1982 hive rental fees rose 80 per cent and from 1985 to 1987 fees rose a further 52 per cent in New Zealand.

Nectar production:

None. Does produce pollen.

Review of bee pollination benefits:

• Hives placed in crop when 10 to 15 per cent of the female flowers are open.
• Insect-pollinated.
• Honeybees are the most important pollinator (New Zealand).
• 7.9 times increase in kiwifruit pollen collected when hives were fed with sugar syrup. The largest daily increase was 43.6 times.
• Fruit size dependent upon seed number. Export fruit must contain 600 to 700 seeds requiring the transfer of 2 to 3000 pollen grains.

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Loganberry (Rubus x loganobaccus )

Loganberry is a natural hybrid of blackberry and raspberry that originated in the garden of Judge Logan in California in 1881.

Review of bee pollination benefits:

• Nectar-gathering bees represented 79 per cent of foragers visiting loganberries.
• 439.1 per cent increase in yield in open and enclosed plots (Victoria).

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Mulberry

Male flowers of mulberry

Mulberries are wind-pollinated.

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Olives

Flowers of olive

Olives are wind-pollinated.

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Blackberry

Rubus fruticosus (laciniatus)
Rubus ulmiformis (inermis)
Rubus glaucus Andean Blackberry (Ref. 1)

Hives per hectare:

2 to 10 some at higher rates of 7 to 10/ha. 2 hives/ha (Ref. 1).

Honey bee foraging: The average visitation to flowers was 8 seconds. The honey bees were most active between the hours of 10 am and 4.30 pm (Ref. 1).

Nectar production:

Both nectar and pollen produced in quantity.

Honey production:

Good flavour, medium amber; granulates slowly to a coarse-grained texture. Pollen is pale brownish-grey.

Review of bee pollination benefits

• In variety Thornless Evergreen honeybees increased earlier yields.
• Most flowers pollinated on the first day open.
• Honey bees were the main pollinators in Italy making up 69% of visits to flowers. Bees from the genus Lasioglossum were also important making 30-40% of visits (Ref. 1).

Abstracts of scientific papers on blackberry pollination

1. TITLE: Flower visitation patterns of Apis mellifera on the Andean blackberry.

ABSTRACT: Foraging behaviour of honey bees (Apis  mellifera) on Andean Blackberry (Rubus glaucus) was studied at a 10 ha site in Retiro, Colombia. Ten honey bee colonies (each of about 30 000 bees) were introduced to pollinate the crop. Bees foraged on the flowers only for nectar, but carried pollen grains on their bodies. Mean visitation time was 8 seconds/flower. The greatest foraging activity was between 10 am and 4.30 pm. The population density of honey bees on the flowers varied greatly, but the results indicate that 2 hives/ha would be sufficient for pollination of Andean blackberry crops. Insecticide applications would be best made before 9 am and after 6 pm.

AUTHOR: Garces, Botero, N. and Morales Soto, G.

JOURNAL: Revista Colombiana de Entomologia 21(3): 153-157 1995.

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Cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon)

Nectar production:

Little nectar is produced.

Pollen production:

Pollen is shed prior to stigma receptivity. Stigma is receptive 24 to 36 hours after pollen is shed. Pollen must be moved between flowers of different ages for cranberry set to occur

Hives per hectare:

2 to 10/ha; 1 per acre (2.5/ha). Hives should be placed in crops when 10 to 25 per cent of plants are in flower.

Honey foragers:

Pollen is difficult for the bees to access. Honey bees actively harvest pollen from cranberries by "drumming" or stroking the anthers. Differences in pollen delivery to flowers from pollen-foragers or nectar-foragers. Also queen bees genetically selected for pollen hoarding recruited more pollen foragers (Ref. 1). A flower visit by a pollen-forager received four times more pollen than that from nectar-foragers.

Apis mellifera deposited an average 4.5 tetrads per single visit to flowers.

Feeding sugar syrup:

Experiments feeding sugar syrup did not enhance pollen foraging by honey bees (Ref. 1).

Use of bee attractant sprays:

Synthetic queen bee mandibular pheromone sprays have been used to attract bees to blueberry crops. Concentrations of 100 to 1000 queen equivalents (QEQ) sprayed onto crops were attractive to honey bees (Ref. 3).

Other bee pollinators:

• Megachile addenda - deposited an average 28 tetrads per single visit to flowers of cranberry.
• Megachile rotundata - deposited an average 8.3 tetrads per single visit to flowers.

Review of bee pollination benefits for cranberry crops

See also: Blueberry for further pollination research notes on Vaccinium spp.

1. Pollinator genetics and pollination: Breeding Apis for cranberries
2. Effect of Synthetic Queen Mandibular Pheromone Sprays on Honey Bee Pollination of Berry Crops

1. TITLE: Pollinator genetics and pollination: Breeding Apis for cranberries.

   ABSTRACT: Honeybee foragers actively harvest pollen from cranberry flowers by drumming or stroking the anthers. We show these foragers to be superior cranberry pollinators. More pollen-foragers (86%) delivered pollen in excess of that needed for fruit set, compared with only 50% of nectar-foragers. Stronger colonies fielded more pollen foragers, but syrup supplementation did not enhance pollen foraging. Colonies headed by queens bearing a heritable pollen-hoarding trait harvested significantly more pollen (and so presumably field more pollen- foragers) than standard colonies. Fielding more pollen-foragers translates into delivering more effective cranberry pollinators for a honey bee colony of a given size.

   Genetic polymorphisms of flowering plants are known to influence foraging behaviors of pollinators; however, no heritable polymorphism of a pollinator is known to influence its efficacy as a pollinator. Cranberry flowers require bee visitation for pollination. Honey bees visit cranberry flowers for nectar but rarely pollen if alternative floral species exist nearby. Floral stigmas of managed cranberries visited once by pollen-foraging honey bees received an average 4-fold more pollen than flowers visited by mere nectar foragers, even when the latter made stigmatic contact. This is the first study to link pollinator genetics and resultant pollination efficiency, in this case the consequence of a bee's predilection for actively harvesting pollen and that behavior's associated superiority for pollination efficiency.

   AUTHOR: Cane, J. H. and Schiffhauer, D.

   JOURNAL: www.nal.usda.gov/ttic/tektran

2. TITLE: Effect of Synthetic Queen Mandibular Pheromone Sprays on Honey Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Pollination of Berry Crops

   ABSTRACT: Honey bee, Apis mellifera L., queen mandibular pheromone was applied to blocks of cranberry, Vaccinium macrocarpon Ait., and blueberry, Vaccinium corymbosum L., by helicopter and air-blast sprayer, respectively. The number of bees attracted was both dose and crop dependent. Concentrations of 100 queen equivalents (QEQ) (AI)/ha of pheromone were most effective in attracting honey bee foragers to cranberry. On blueberry, concentrations of 100 or 1000 QEQ (AI)/ha of pheromone were attractive to bees. Concentrations of 10 000 QEQ (AI)/ha were unattractive to bees foraging on either crop. Applications of pheromone increased yield and total revenues by up to $8 804/ha on cranberry and $986/ha on blueberry. However, the pheromone was not economical to apply under all situations.

   AUTHOR: Currie, R.W.; Winston, M.L.; Slessor, K.N.

   JOURNAL: Journal of Economic Entomology 85 (4): 1300-1306 (1992)

Page reviewed: March 2006