Using Honey Bees To 
Pollinate Crops 
The honey bee is a most useful in- 
sect. In the United States alone, 
about 4.1 million colonies produce 
150 million dollars’ worth of honey 
and beeswax. While producing these 
unique and valuable products, honey 
bees also pollinate almost 19 billion 
dollars’ worth of agricultural crops. 
In addition, they pollinate range 
plants, ornamentals, medicinals, 
spices, as well as trees and shrubs 
that provide food and shelter for 
wildlife. 
Maximum yield and optimum 
quality of many commercially grown 
fruits, vegetables, and seed crops 
often require more insect pollinators 
than are naturally present in an area 
at flowering time.. For this reason, 
about 10-15% of the colonies in the 
U. S. are rented by crop producers 
one or more times each year to as- 
sure an adequate level of pollination. 
The rest of the colonies generally 
supply pollination free as a bypro- 
duct of their honey-collecting activi- 
ties. 
Characteristics of Bees 
Although many kinds of insects 
visit flowers in search of nectar and 
or pollen, only bees are important 
pollinators. Of the thousands of 
species of bees, only three are im- 
portant pollinators of commercial 
crops. The alkali bee and the 
leafcutter bee are effective pollina- 
tors of alfalfa for seed in Washing- 
ton, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, and 
Utah. Because of their highly specific 
By M.D. Levin, research entomologist, 
Agricultural Research Service, Carl 
Hayden Bee Research Center, Tucson, 
Arizona; and reviewed by F.E. 
Westbrook, agronomist, Extension 
Service, U.S. Department of 
Agriculture, Washington, D.C. 
nesting, foraging, and environmen- 
tal requirements, their value is limit- 
ed almost entirely to alfalfa and the 
five States mentioned. Other bees 
are either too few in number, or 
have too specialized food habits to 
be commercially valuable. Thus, ho- 
ney bees provide about 80 percent 
of insect pollination service to crops. 
If it were not for them, yields from 
many of our crops would be 
uneconomical and quality would be 
substandard. 
The honey bee is unusually well 
adapted for pollination. Each colony 
contains thousands of individuals 
which are available to forage for the 
food (pollen and nectar) that’s re- 
quired to rear their replacements. 
Like other bees, their sense of smell, 
eyes, mouthparts, and numerous 
branched body hairs are ideally suit- 
ed for finding food sources, sipping 
nectar, and collecting and distribut- 
ing pollen. Honey bees visit a wider 
variety of flower types than any oth- 
er insect. In a single day, one bee 
makes 12 or more trips from the 
hive, visiting several thousand 
flowers. Yet on each trip, it usually 
confines its visit to one plant 
species, collecting one kind of nectar 
and distributing one kind of pollen. 
It has a complex communication sys- 
tem that makes the colony efficient 
in finding and collecting food with 
maximum efficiency. All these 
characteristics enable the honey bee 
to find and distribute an abundance 
of pollen and make it our most valu- 
able agent for cross-pollinating crops. 
Beekeepers maintain honey bee 
colonies in most agricultural areas, 
and are usually equipped to move 
colonies to any location where con- 
centrated bee pollination activity is 
needed. 
