By Riley Reed, 2022-2025 FFAR Fellow
at Washington State University
Insects are responsible for pollinating many of our favorite foods ranging from apples to chocolate. In fact, nearly 100 crops globally either require or benefit from animal pollination. Many different animals are capable of pollinating, including bees, flies, beetles, and even bats, but honey bees are by far the most widely used pollinators in agriculture. Honey bees generally work really well with our agricultural system, allowing migratory beekeepers to quickly transport huge numbers of pollinators to a blooming crop and then remove them just as quickly when they are no longer needed. Of course, the delicious honey they make certainly sweetens the pot too! Unfortunately, this system isn’t quite as good for the bees. Honey bees need a much more diverse diet than they can acquire from a single crop, forcing some of the bees to look for food outside the field or orchard. Normally this isn’t a problem because there are still plenty of bees in the field, but for seed crops this presents a big risk.