Many fruits and vegetables depend on bees for pollination---over five
billion dollars worth each year---yet the wild bees have all but disappeared.
Or could it be more?  Six billion?  Seven?  I would appreciate any
input into this.  Who knows, it might encourage some more people to go
into beekeeping, if only do help do their patriotic duty.
 
Hi you overseas again, about honey bees as pollinators, briefly:
 
Robinson et al. (1989, Am.Bee J.) counted that in the USA the value of
honey bees as pollinators of commersially grown crops is about 17 % of
the total value of the final products (45 % if the indirect
influences are taken into account), and in the Europe about 5-
10 % of the value of the all products getting advance of the insect
pollination according to Borneck & Merle (1989), and finally in
Finland the value of honey bee pollination in commersially grown crops
is about 19 % of the total value of the final crop products
(Yläoutinen 1994). Differences are mainly due to differences in field
areas (in the USA huge open field areas where the influence of the
natural pollinators is lower, than in the relatively small fields in
the EU and Finland), and in my homeland we also have quite a little
amount of honey bees and the growers are using pollination services
relatively seldom.
 
Greetings
 
Aana
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Aana Vainio
Department of Applied Zoology
P.O.Box 27 (Viikki C)
FIN-00014 University of Helsinki
FINLAND
Tel: + 358 9 708 5662 Fax: + 358 9 708 5463