To Bee or Not to Bee

Blue Orchard Mason Bee

OK, this is the first I've heard of them, but I've probably seen them:  A key bee at Chesapeake orchards - The mason bee is a productive pollinator for all types of native fruits

Between September and October, orchards in Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania burst with wide varieties of local apples. In Pennsylvania, the Historic South Mountain Fruit Belt in Davison County is the sixth largest producer of apples in the nation. Though these farms have typically used honeybees to pollinate their fruit-trees, a growing number of small to mid-size orchards are employing the native mason bee to help get to the job done.

While honeybees are an important agricultural resource nationwide, research has shown that mason bees are a far better pollinator of local fruit. According to Penn State University Extension, six mason bees can pollinate an entire tree, where as it would take 360 honeybees to do the same job. Part of the reason that mason bees are such good fruit-tree pollinators is that they emerge in early spring before many others. From that point on, their life cycle coincides with the blossoming of various fruit trees, and they are generally only active for a few weeks in March and April when fruit blooms. With honeybee numbers in decline, mason bees have gotten even more recognition as an alternative fruit-tree pollinator for the Chesapeake region.

Japanese Orchard Bee

The blue one is not familiar looking, but the Japanese one is.

The two species of mason bees best suited for apple orchard pollination are the blue orchard bee (Osmia lignaria) and the Japanese orchard bee (Osmia cornifrons), which was brought to the United States in the 1990s to help grow fruit. Though a non-native, the Japanese orchard bee is now well-established in the wild and is not considered to be invasive. Together, these species are earning attention among farmers and gardeners alike, and are some the few bee species to be managed at farms.

Of course, apples aren’t all the mason bee is good for, and there are many more species than the blue orchard and Japanese orchard. There are around 20 species of springtime mason bees in the Mid-Atlantic, and there are 140 species of Osmia (the mason bee genus) in North America. All of them are known for visiting fruit trees, such as apples, plums, pears, almonds, peaches and cherries, as well various flowers.

For many years now, actual Honeybees have been virtually absent from our region. Did a disease get them, or does nobody nearby keep beehives? I don't know. But still, all our flowers seem to be constantly visited by a variety of little bee-like  critters, and lots of seed and fruit get formed (except on our lone apple tree, which is another story). I'm beginning to doubt the seriousness of the honeybeecalypse.