Agricultural Research Service scientists in Logan, Utah, and their colleagues from Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc. , Lakeville, Mass., are scrutinizing the pollinating skills of a small, steely-blue bee known as Osmia atriventris . This insect belongs to a family of native bees that nest in holes in stems, branches, fenceposts, tree trunks and other aboveground cavities. And the scientists are experimenting with another promising native, a honey bee-sized leaf cutter called Megachile addenda . The leaf-cutting bee makes its shallow home in the sandy bottom of cranberry bogs. James H. Cane of the ARS Bee Biology and Systematics Laboratory at Logan, is leading the work as part of a cooperative research and development agreement between ARS and Ocean Spray, the country's largest cranberry-grower cooperative.
Native bees are gentle and hardworking.
They may help offset the loss of domesticated honey bees from attack by varroa or tracheal mites, small hive beetles, or microbes that cause devastating diseases such as foulbrood or chalkbrood. An article in the May issue of the ARS monthly journal, Agricultural Research , tells more about the Logan research team's studies of native bees as alternative pollinators. ARS is USDA 's chief research agency.