Leafcutter bees could be put to work in the prairie fruit and vegetable industry if trials on university land in Saskatoon prove successful.
Researchers Doug Waterer of the University of Saskatchewan and Wayne Goerzen of the Saskatchewan Alfalfa Seed Producers Association are exploring alternative crop pollination opportunities for the bees.
Waterer, the university’s vegetable crops specialist, said leafcutter bees are easier to work with and have less of a sting than the honeybees more commonly used to pollinate fruit crops. They can also survive the heat of the greenhouses where many crops such as cantaloupes and peppers are grown.
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They are more disease resistant, but will die off in wet weather, said Waterer.
“Growers like working with them better than honeybees,” he said.
Goerzen said horticultural operations could create a market for some of the 2.5 billion leafcutter bees produced in Saskatchewan alfalfa fields each year.
He explained bees are used on 125,000 acres of alfalfa in Saskatchewan, the largest alfalfa seed production area in the world.
“We not only produce seed, but many years we will double the bee population,” he said.
Most bees are sold into the northwestern United States.
In recent years, Goerzen has experimented with these bees in the vegetable and fruit fields of California where he has achieved good results with melons.
In the Saskatoon trials, he is looking at how the bees react to various crops and flowers.
Goerzen thinks they have potential for pollinating high-value crops like cantaloupe, melons, pumpkins and squash and perhaps one day, hothouse tomatoes.
While the university plots that used the leafcutter bees produced a “real nice pumpkin crop” last year, he said more research was needed to determine what role, if any, the bees played.
