-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Cranberry Bogs and Bees
Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 09:21:36 -0400
From: "ARS News Service" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "ARS News List" <[log in to unmask]>

STORY LEAD:
Cranberry Chores Don't Bog Down These Bees
___________________________________________

ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Marcia Wood, (510) 559-6070, [log in to unmask]
May 3, 2000
___________________________________________

Two species of native bees may prove ideal for helping America's
domesticated honey bees with the daunting task of pollinating cranberry
plants. An average acre of cranberry bog has about 20 million flowers.
Each
of these small, white blooms must be visited at least once by a
pollinating
insect in order for the flowers to form ripe, crimson berries.

ARS scientists in Logan, Utah, and their colleagues from Ocean Spray
Cranberries, Inc., Lakeville, Mass., are scrutinizing the pollinating
skills of a small, steely-blue bee known as Osmia atriventris. This
insect
belongs to a family of native bees that nest in holes in stems,
branches,
fenceposts, tree trunks and other aboveground cavities.

And the scientists are experimenting with another promising native, a
honey
bee-sized leaf cutter called Megachile addenda. The leaf-cutting bee
makes
its shallow home in the sandy bottom of cranberry bogs.

James H. Cane of the ARS Bee Biology and Systematics Laboratory at
Logan,
is leading the work as part of a cooperative research and development
agreement between ARS and Ocean Spray, the country's largest
cranberry-grower cooperative.

Native bees are gentle and hardworking. They may help offset the loss of
domesticated honey bees from attack by varroa or tracheal mites, small
hive
beetles, or microbes that cause devastating diseases such as foulbrood
or
chalkbrood. An article in the May issue of the ARS monthly journal,
Agricultural Research, tells more about the Logan research team's
studies
of native bees as alternative pollinators. View it on the World Wide Web
at:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/may00/buzz0500.htm

ARS is USDA's chief research agency.

___________________________________________

Scientific contact: James H. Cane, ARS Bee Biology and Systematics
Laboratory, 5310 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322; phone (435) 797-3879,
fax
(435 )797-0461, [log in to unmask]
___________________________________________

This item is one of the news releases and story leads that ARS
Information
distributes on weekdays to fax and e-mail subscribers. You can also get
the
latest ARS news on the World Wide Web at
www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/thelatest.htm.
* Feedback and questions to ARS News Service via e-mail:
[log in to unmask]
* ARS Information Staff, 5601 Sunnyside Ave., Room 1-2251, Beltsville MD
20705-5128, (301) 504- 1617, fax 504-1648.