Originally Posted by
gavin
Interesting, that. The commercial bumble bees are usually one of the races of Bombus terrestris. They are short tongued bees that can cut through the side or the back of the corolla of flowers that are a bit long and tubular for them to reach the nectaries, when its nectar they're after. Usually the commercial boxes contain syrup and that may encourage them to raise brood and gather pollen (which they have to do legitimately) which will of course help pollinate, but the robbing activity doesn't help the pollination effort and exposes the nectaries to other would-be pollinators too.
The carder bee is a long-tongued bee that lives in smaller nests in tussocky ground and is thought not to fly as far as some of the other species. It makes perfect sense to plan for good carder bee habitat in any farm considering scaling up blueberry culture.
Incidently, mason bees may be finished by June if that is a typical time for blueberry to be in flower.
In that other thread, Peter said that blueberries are buzz-pollinated (which is true, bumble bees usually buzz pollinate blueberry) and that honeybees are no use for blueberry (no, they are just less efficient, as the scientific literature confirms).
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