Most people would equate “managing pollinators” to beekeeping. Which means working with a managed pollinator, i.e. the Western honey bee, Apis mellifera. Which isn’t the meaning I’m referring to here. This month, we’ve been talking about agriculture and how it depends on pollination. I tried to clarify how much crop production depends on biodiversity, gave…
Flowering strips seem to be a go-to when it comes to helping bees in farmland. They’re meant to be a countermeasure against the floral deficits because of intense agriculture. And of course, flowers and bees, they’re the perfect match, aren’t they? Yes, they are. However, you may already imagine that I’m not an unquestioning fan….
Road verges cover quite a bit of area. In Germany, where I live, it’s about 30,000 km². I’m not that sure how reliable the data are, but considering that this country seems to be covered in streets, it’s a good approximation, I guess. If you wonder how this relates to bees: well, road verges are…
Bees are a classical example for central place foraging. It may sound abstract but simply means that the activity of an animal displays around a “home base”. There is a central point to which they return. This applies quite well for bees, at least for the females (and I’m leaving out cuckoo bees, too…). The…
Talking about bees and agriculture, pesticide use is the first issue coming up. In the past years, the discussion concentrated mainly on neonicotinoids and glyphosat. But, as I discussed already a month ago, this doesn’t get the whole picture. What we need is mainly a change in structures and strategies, not only pesticide bans. But…
After dealing with the interesting parts of pollination, unfortunately, we also have to address the less uplifting part of it: pollinator decline. I hope that within this series, I gave you an idea of how important pollinators (not only bees) are. How beautiful and fascinating. Though I think that biodiversity is a value by itself…
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