Re: Wild Bees
- Subject: Re: Wild Bees
- From: R* D*
- Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 00:53:04 -0400
At 08:58 PM 5/17/2002 -0700, you wrote:
>Last fall I attended a restoration workshop which had many informative
>talks including one on native bees. The speaker talked about the over 50
>species of wild bees in the Pinnacles National Monument region. Their
>populations seemed to be stable and thriving and the speaker stated they
>were a better pollinators than honey bees. Perhaps only the areas near
>commercial orchids have mites on the honey and wild bee populations. Its
>only a guess but I sure hope its true.
>Ernie
>Aptos, CA
>just south of Santa Cruz on the ocean.
Ernie:
My former boss was the president of the Guilford County Beekepers
Association some time back, and he kept one of his hives at my former residence.
He told me that honey bees occasionally get lost and often get adopted by
other hives. I assume this is the vector for infection by both mites, and
that the mites are specific to Apis mellifera. I believe a lot of the other
native bees are ant- to fly-sized insects and would not make good hosts for
the mites.
There are 3,745 species of the bee family in the United States.
Richard F. Dufresne
313 Spur Road
Greensboro, North Carolina 27406 USA
336-674-3105
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