Barneyhill
New Member
very informative will make a print of this for future reference.
Honey bees are not native to North America. Settlers introduced them. The job of pollinating fell to other insects and other types of native bees before the advent of honey bees here. If the honey bee disappeared, it would be concerning, but the native flora would still survive.
Native Bees of North America
Native bees are an unappreciated treasure, with 4,000 species from tiny Perdita to large carpenter bees, they can be found anywhere in North America where flowers bloom. Most people don’t realize that there were no honey bees in America until the white settlers brought hives from Europe. These resourceful insects promptly managed to escape domestication, forming swarms and setting up housekeeping in hollow trees, other cavities or even exposed to the elements just as they had been doing in their native lands. Native pollinators, in particular bees, had been doing all the pollination in this continent before the arrival of that import from the Old World. They continue to do a great deal of it, especially when it comes to native plants.
Non-native honey bee, Apis mellifera: 1. Queen surrounded by attendants. 2. Swarm. 3. Combs of a feral colony
The honey bee, remarkable as it is, doesn’t know how to pollinate a tomato or an eggplant flower, while some native bees are masters at this. The same thing happens with a number of native plants, such as pumpkins and squash, blueberries and cranberries, which are more efficiently pollinated by native bees than by honey bees
