In my back yard, on Whidbey Island in northwest Washington State, I
have three hives not fifty feet from my raspberries, salmonberries (wild),
blackcaps (wild), and thimbleberries (wild).  I am happy to report that
there are at least three species of bumblebees visiting these berries at
various times, some seeming to be more prevalent than others on one blossom
or another at different times according to who knows what.  I rarely see any
honeybees on any of these.  I also have a couple of apple trees close by and
I hardly ever see my honeybees visiting these, but I do see bumblebees on
them all the time.  I have always assumed that this is because it is either
too cold for honeybees when a fruit is in bloom or there was something else
producing more nectar and/or pollen somewhere else.  I’m sure we all
understand that honeybees take the easiest path to their goal, so if there
is a better choice for them you can forget about getting your tomatoes or
whatever pollinated by honeybees even if that better source is somewhat
further away.  But for their shortage in numbers relative to a bunch of
honeybee hives, bumblebees seem to me to do a better, certainly a more
pervasive, job of pollinating than honeybees.  I have no doubt whatsoever
that without bumblebees, a lot of things would suffer a lack of pollination.

Steve Noble

             ***********************************************
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