Randy
 
I have to agree with Jim on this one.  Each solitary bee species has it's own biology, requirements, niche, and these factors are usually very restrictive and poorly understood.  I've worked with  many of these bees (my degrees  are in entomology, not apiculture).  Just keeping most species alive can be a challenge.  

Bumblebees would appear to be easier, but only marginally.  The  Dutch have the technology to keep bumblebees going through more than one reproductive cycle.  They use it for bees for their greenhouses (they own huge greenhouses in the USA, as you know), and the rest of us  can obtain boxes of bumblebees produced using their technologies.   A colleague of mine specialized in Bumblebees, would catch queens in spring.

BUT, and here's the rub - not many other than the Dutch ever manage to sustain bumblebees past one season, get them to reproduce.  And, from our experience, the Dutch aren't sharing their technology - I assume they made a huge investment in the research needed to get it right, and now use it for profit (greenhouse pollination, sales of bumblebees in cardboard boxes, etc.).  Without lots of NDAs and a big infusion of cash, they're not likely to share.

Having kept bumblebees in lab, greenhouses, and out-doors in artificial 'mouse nests', we know just how difficult it is to work with Bumblebees.  Even the bumblebee boxes that these bees are shipped in aren't designed for long-term use - the cardboard 'nest box' is designed for short-term use for greenhouse pollination.  First thing one needs for any sort of longer term bumblebee study - transplant the bees into something that has better buffering against thermo fluctuations, is less likely to grow fungus, etc.

And my colleague needed lots of students to catch enough queens to start from scratch with bumblebees native to MT.  There's also a big issue about the introduction of the bumblebee species 'sold' for pollination into habitats where they didn't occur, and where  the pests and diseases they carry may not be endemic to other 'native' bumblebee species, as you well know.

Lots of people want to do research on bumblebees - rush off to buy some boxes of them, all smiles when they arrive, but in a few weeks most newbies manage to 'kill their pretty bees', and these bees are a bit on the expensive side.

Jerry





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