(Backyard Gardener - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

Hello Mid-Ohio Valley farmers and gardeners! The growing season is in full swing as those ever-popular warm-season vegetables are going into the ground or in containers. I just planted some ‘Sweet 100″ cherry tomato plants. I am definitely looking forward to harvesting those in a few weeks (65 days or so). They also have a ‘Super Sweet 100″ so I need to find some of those plants too.

This week, let’s talk about pollinators. Did you know honeybees do not pollinate tomato plants? Bumble bees “buzz” pollinate them, shaking the pollen from the anther to the stigma. Carpenter bees also pollinate tomatoes.

Pollinators play a very important role in the environment and for food production. More than 100 U.S. grown crops rely on pollinators. The added revenue to crop production from pollinators is valued at $18 billion.

Honey bees are America’s primary commercial pollinator with 2.8 million U.S. honey bee hives. Major U.S. honeybee pollinated crops include almonds, non-citrus fruit trees, berries, melons and squash. The total annual value of U.S. honey bee products and services sold is about $700 million

Honeybees are most commonly associated with pollination, but native bees, butterflies, wasps, flies, bats, birds and beetles can also pollinate important agriculture crops in addition flowers. Peppers, tomatoes, strawberries and zucchini squash harvested by backyard gardeners in addition to flowering shrubs, trees and plants all rely on pollinators.

Most plants cannot pollinate themselves, so the pollen grains must be carried from flower to flower through wind, water, animals or insects. Honey bees do not pollinate certain plants plus they are susceptible to diseases and parasites. The varroa mite has caused considerable damage to U.S. honeybee populations.

Many species of native bees are resistant to the varroa mites and other disease affecting honeybees. These bees and other native pollinators can assist with pollination in our gardens in addition to many commercial farm crops.

Reduced fruit sets and misshaped fruits can result if a flower does not receive the appropriate dose of pollen. Bees are the most effective pollinators because they regularly visit many flowers of the same species to collect pollen and nectar, which they feed to their young. This behavior is very effective at delivering pollen from one flower to the next.

Let’s compare honeybees and native pollinators for a moment. Honey bees are extremely important for pollinating numerous agriculturally important crops. Honey bees have some advantages over alternative pollinators on a large scale. A large number of hives can easily be moved and manipulated to populate crops. Honey bees also provide a source of income through honey production and other hive products.

Pollination guidelines for crops are generally based on honeybees and recommend appropriate numbers of hives required per acre to maximize yield. However, they are not native to North America, but were imported from Europe by the colonists and have since become naturalized here.

Native species of bees have been successfully utilized for pollinating certain crops. Mason bees such as the blue orchard bees and the horn-faced bee pollinate orchard crops including apples, almonds and cherries.

Bumble bees are used for pollination of tomatoes grown in high tunnels and other greenhouses. The alfalfa leafcutter bee is used for large-scale alfalfa seed production in California and the Pacific Northwest. These bees are available from commercial suppliers.

Bees are part of the insect order Hymenoptera which includes ants, wasps and sawflies. Approximately 3,600 species are native to the U.S. including bumble bees, carpenter bees, leafcutter bees, digger bees, sweat bees, cellophane bees, mason bees and other groups.

They range in length from about of 1/12 inch to more than 1 inch and vary in color from dark brown or black to red or metallic green and blue. Some have stripes of white, orange, yellow or black and some even have opalescent bands.

Nesting materials include leaves, mud, water and rodent nests. Leafcutter bees tend to favor certain species of plants for nest construction materials and some species use flower petals. The blue orchard bee and other mason bees use mud for nest construction. Bumble bees generally use old gopher and rodent nests.

Bumble bees are the most noticeable to gardeners because of their size. The large bumble bees you see in the early spring are the queens, awakening from hibernation and establishing new colonies. They are often seen flying around searching for a place to build a nest. The queen forages for a few weeks and raises the first batch of brood which becomes worker bees.

Native pollinators such as butterflies, flies, beetles, wasps and bees drink nectar as an energy source and also eat pollen, which is rich in proteins and oils. In this process of moving around in the flower these insects get covered with pollen and move from plant to plant, accomplishing pollination.

The difference in the size, shape or color of the flower determines which pollinators can access it for nourishment. Some flowers seem perfectly suited for humming birds like the cardinal flower. Long narrow flowers require a long tongue or proboscis while a smaller flowers require a short proboscis found on a sweat bee or a hover fly.

One of the most attractive and effective ways to increase pollinator populations on your property is to nurture a variety of flowering plants that will provide nectar and pollen to adult pollinators. To best help pollinators, a landscape of diverse native plants should range in height, flower shape and flower color with successive blooms that provide forage throughout the growing season.

About 70% of our native bees are solitary ground-nesters. These species need bare patches of undisturbed sandy or loamy soil in which to excavate their nests. About 30% of our native bees are solitary cavity or tunnel-nesters, using pithy stems of vegetation or insect tunnels under tree bark to create their nests.

Most of our native butterflies, which change from caterpillars to adult butterflies through a process known as metamorphosis, require host plant species (milkweed and others) for their caterpillars to eat before changing into butterflies.

There are many ways backyard gardeners can attract pollinators. Consider your space, your existing plants and the potential flowering plants in your seed bank when you develop your pollinator areas.

Pollinator foraging habitat can be a small, well-planned butterfly garden, a large bee meadow filled with native wildflowers, a fencerow with various layers of flowering trees, shrubs and forbs, or even pollinator-friendly field borders and cover-crops.

Allowing marginal lands, fencerows and ditches to revert to some native vegetation, such as asters, goldenrods and milkweeds, will dramatically improve the nectar resources on your property and promote pollinators as well as other beneficial insects that make up a healthy landscape.

One of the best sources for learning more about pollinators is “Managing Alternative Pollinators,” a handbook printed by Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education available from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Contact me at the Wood County WVU Extension Office (304)-424-1960 or at jj.barrett@mail.wvu.edu with questions. Until next time, Good Luck and Happy Gardening!