> What are your first-hand experiences with deploying solitary bees for > pollination, if any? Alfalfa leafcutter bees are used on Prince Edward Island for blueberry pollination, and they were also used in past years for hybrid canola seed production. They are a commercially deployable solitary bee. You buy a tray of frozen cocoons and thaw them out a certain number of days before pollination. Although they are "sociable" in that they will nest by the hundreds in a single hanging block of wood with holes, they are not "social bees", but solitary by the definitions I have seen of social bees. Each leafcutter bee provisions only its own brood. Because they do not give up reproduction to a queen they are not social bees. *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html