>For the past several years I have been evaluating methods to increase the
>amount of pollen honeybees gathered off of cranberry bogs. This includes
>sugar feeding, wave placement,  egg laying/brood  manipulation, pollen
>removal, hive locations, hive numbers, QMP, use of complementary nectar rich
>plants etc.  Cranberry pollen is not all that attractive to honey bees and
>they will go out of their way to collect anything other than cranberry
>pollen. Some of these methods appear to work some of the time but there is a
>tremendious variation between hives and locations. Getting good consistent
>data is hard.  Any suggestions? What has worked for other plants which honey
>bee don't like such as onions or pears? Any  work on modifying the
>attractiveness of the plant to bees other than the use of QMP or other
>phermone like attractants?  What about modifying the mineral nutrition of
>the plant?
 
I just saw a talk by Kenna McKenzie, who is working in commercial cranberry
bogs in Nova Scotia, and based on her studies there's little question that
bumblebees are both more effective pollinators and more *economically*
effective pollinators. The best answer, I'd submit, is not to do anything
to the plants, but simply switch to the native bees which have been
pollinating wild cranberries for the last several million years. Based on
Kenna's work, which has been going on for quite some time, and covers
several Vaccinium species, it looks like using honeybees on Vaccinium
species is proverbially forcing a square peg in a round hole.
 
Doug Yanega      Illinois Natural History Survey, 607 E. Peabody Dr.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA     phone (217) 244-6817, fax (217) 333-4949
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82