BEE-L Archives

Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

BEE-L@COMMUNITY.LSOFT.COM

Options: Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 18 Aug 2014 06:07:17 -0400
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (21 lines)
I have noticed that here in Dorset, (southern England) gorse goes out 

of flower (except the dwarf variety) at about the same time that the 

heather, which occupies the same heathland terrain, comes into flower.  

Could they have evolved this pattern to avoid pollinator competition 

and maximise their own reproductive efficiency?



Naturally, there are not too many large hollow trees or other suitable 

nest sites on heathland and so bees have to fly a long way to work 

these plants.  When Prof Francis Ratnieks was at Sheffield University 

(he's now at Sussex Uni) he had his students marking and tracking bees 

and found that they went (if my memory serves) up to 14km ( almost 9 

miles) to get the the heather.



Chris



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

ATOM RSS1 RSS2