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TREES FOR BEES
An initiative to help the bees
The special importance of trees for bees
The present world-wide decline of bee populations is considered to have great impact on our society. The decline is among other factors attributed to the decline of food plants for bees. Good foraging conditions are essential for healthy bee populations. Of course all flowering bee food plants are important. However, when considering our own possibility to improve the bee flora in a certain area, especially trees have great advantages in comparison to useful herbs, flowering annuals, etc.
Trees can not only present massive numbers of flowers in a voluminous three dimensional space, they normally also offer bee forage for a number of years on a row without the need of annual renewal by sowing, planting or special care from our side. Trees are there for some time to be. The planting of bee food trees has high impact on the living conditions of bees.
Objectives
A major objective of the International Trees for Bees Initiative is to provide information about important trees for bees in different parts of the world. The goal is not only to collect and list information about important trees on this website. Creating awareness about the importance of trees for bees is equally important. Many decision makers for landscaping, city development, reforestation etc. are not aware of, or do still not realize enough, the great significance of suitable trees as food plants for bees. It is important to understand that some trees are very valuable while other trees are less important for bees. The objective is to point to information that can be used in the planting of gardens, city parks, public spaces and nature reserves. When trees are to be planted somewhere, we should already in the early planning phase consider the possibility for selecting types of trees that do have a significance for bees.
The importance of bees
The honeybee, Apis mellifera, is world’s major pollinator of food and cash crops. Apis bees also play an important ecological role as pollinators of natural flora in nearly all continents. Other bee groups, such as bumblebees, stingless bees and very many species of solitary bees are also of great importance as pollinators. Many plants would not exist without the collaboration of their specific pollinator. Special bee groups, or specific species, are only locally important and other bees are particularly suitable for the pollination of certain horticultural crops, e.g. bumblebees are extremely important for the commercial pollination of tomatoes in greenhouses.
The present decline of bee pollinators is world-wide recognised. Several initiatives are taken to document this decline and to assess its impact on flora, wild life and agriculture. Our previous initiative for an Apimondia “Trees for Bees Programme” was exclusively focussing on
Apis mellifera. This was initiated by the Commission for Pollination and Bee Flora of Apimondia after participating in the annual Italian National Beekeeping meeting in Piacenza, 2007, at the invitation of FAI. Stimulating factors for this initiatitive were the publication of our book on meliferous trees for stingless bees in Costa Rica* and the publication of our cd with recommended local trees to be used in reforestation projects in El Salvador and Central America, based on their status as bee foodplants **.
Information on bee tree books
Various books and reports have already been published about food plants of bees in different regions of the world, but books specifically on important trees are less common. We would like to be informed about such publications to further share this information. Please send information on available publications on trees in your area to
m.j.sommeijer@uu.nl.
Marinus Sommeijer,
former president Apimondia Standing Commission for Pollination and Bee Flora
*Arce H.G., L.A. Sanchez, E.J.Slaa, P.E. Sanchez-Vindas, A. Ortiz M., J.W. van Veen & M.J. Sommeijer: (2001). Arboles meliferos ativos de meso America. Programa Regional de Apicultura y Meliponicultura-CINAT-UNA-UU, Costa Rica, 208 p.
To be obtained from CINAT UNA Costa Rica, cinat@una.ac.cr and
http://www.cinat.una.ac.cr/
**Marieke Sandker, Promabos 2004, Arboles Meliferos para Reforestar. Including:
“Hojas divulgativas de los Arboles Meliferos”. To be obtained from
Marieke Sandker, and
M.J. Sommeijer
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