Honeybees, Pollinator study.

Kipp McMichael kimcmich@hotmail.com
Fri, 14 Nov 2014 12:46:12 PST
> From: k.preteroti@verizon.net
>Beekeepers are businessmen. They do not place managed hives in locations where there is limited forage, at least not intentionally... I cannot say I have ever seen a flower devoid of pollen due to honey bees over foraging. 
As businessment, beekeepers have every incentive to maximize their number of hives until production falls below profitability. In practice, this means adding hives until the available forage cannot support more. Beekeepers  *are* the limiting factor on forage in this dynamic.
But to bring this back to bulbs: I can certainly say I have seen honeybees fastidiously collect all the pollen from every anther on flowers in my garden. As a propagator, I often lose the competition for pollen to the honeybees! 
The most vivid case of meticulous pollenectomy has been performed by honeybees on every one of hundreds of flowers of Boophone disticha for two seasons now. I have to pollinate in the early morning and hope a few anthers have ripened over night because all the pollen is gone from every ripe anther by the afternoon/evening when I get home.
I don't think anyone is arguing that honeybees are the a major threat to the environment. It nevertheless remains true that trillions of nonnative bees cannot help but have negative competitive effects on native species.
-|<ipp
 		 	   		  



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