Everyone, I started to go off-topic on a separate thread :-X and thought I'd better address my concerns with how honeybees are negatively impacted by humans interfering too much. Example: we dilute the genes of once-attractive bee plants with a less attractive plant just to produce a different-colored hybrid that suits our arbitrary fancy. Honeybees are impacted by color, formation of the flowers etc. When we overcross a plant just to produce certain colors we often dilute and lessen the power of the plant as a good and reliable nectar source.
Brian has brought to my attention about hidden insecticides bred into plants - I can see this happening with Pyrethrins for example. And then there is the topic of genetic engineering, the "can of worms".
But I would like to broach the subject of human interference on all aspects.
I noticed for example in certain countries which blast away poisonous insecticides, the fruit retains its natural sweetness but is deadly to the honeybees. Honeybees still flock to these sweet-smelling blossoms producing these sweet-tasting fruit to their detriment. In Asia for example they unethically blast away, yet the fruit remains very sweet. Then along comes the so-called "benign" genetically modified crops of the USA and its like eating plastic. Red delicious apples decades ago really tasted "delicious". Decades later biting into a standard delicious apple is pretty awful tasting, like biting into only faintly sweet watery liquid compared to an Asian apple. I notice plants that used to have wonderful scent would be attacked by insects even though they attracted honeybees and tons of beneficial pollinators. Then hybridizers started engineering for more hardy, pest-resistant fruiting trees, this resulted in less fragrance in the blooms, less scented sweetness to attract, and tougher hides of skin. Biting into an apple these days can cut my gums up, lol! And don't even mention self-pollinators, lol! My common sense says that a self-pollinating plant is not going to keep its appeal to a pollinator and will gradually lose its pollen and nectar attractiveness. These are EXTREMELY CRITICAL ISSUES TO A HONEYBEE! Every rose grower knows for example that non-scented roses are hardly attacked by Japanese beetles but the highly scented roses they swarm like a horde from hel*. Scent, sweetness are very important as nectar indicators to a honeybee, I would think. SWEETNESS EQUALS FOOD TO A HONEYBEE! I still remember when I was a little girl, my parents used to take my brother and I to road trips along the way. For example on our way to Canada, we'd drive through Vermont. I still remember to this day the most delicious corn, but it was farmed in a natural field, and I was frickin' scared to eat it at first being an ignorant city kid from NYC, because originally you could see the squirming caterpillar pests under the husks--- but after we cleaned off the caterpillars and boiled it, it was sooooo good! Don't ask me why I remember these obscure details being just 8 or 9 years old but I remember this vividly as being the Best tasting corn I ever ate! Nature left to itself, producing wonderful fruit and vegetables. :lol: Then we moved to Kansas straight from New York City. Plenty of pristine corn in Kansas, but most corn bought at the supermarket still tastes very plasticky and the kernels very waxy and hard. That waxiness I blame on genetic engineering and the toughening of the plant to discourage pests.
Back to the garden and shopping at local nurseries. I have found much to my frustration that only certain subspecies of certain species of a plant will attract honeybees. The wrong color, the wrong subspecies, you get very little, if any bee attraction.
I wrote to Robo about what my friend in England observed about honeybee attractive plants...
"Another thing that I am becoming more aware of is that plant breeders can 'create' more appealing versions of traditional flowers that have lost the ability to provide pollen or nectar (the lack of which, more often than not, makes the flowers last longer in good condition) The Michaelmas daisy Monch which I used to replace an older type, has not attracted a single bee or butterfly. I am also suspicious that my dwarf type of Salvia is also lacking. I can see the day when it would be possible to walk into a garden centre with the idea of getting a collection of bee friendly plants and walk away with a collection of likely looking plants that have lost their nectar!"
I too am thinking why in the heck was Bee balm named bee balm??? at one point long ago, indeed bee balm must have attracted bees. I have heard from quite a few folks that yes, their bee balm has not attracted any bees so somewhere something down the line, something has been changed and altered. I noticed that my Dad's ancient crabapples have a wonderful fragrance. I've visited a lot of local nurseries looking for honeybee visitations and once again, the new hybrids - lack of scent AND IT WAS LABELED PEST-RESISTANT! no scent, no pest, and yup! no honeybee visited those crabapples either. In ancient true rose rugosas, not the hybrid rugosas, they would actually form fruit from honeybees visiting them. Hybrid rugosas no longer have that quality or it is severely lessened.
Anyone else who has observed similar phenomenon with older version of plants versus the new hybrids we humans keep messing with?
I think that only part of the lack of flavor is due to genetics. The handling and movement of food causes a lot worse lack of flavor, IMO. Picked unripe, ripened off the vine and during movement. Covered with wax and probably sterilized before movement to prevent rot.
As far as what honeybees need, I find that most of what the bees need they get AWAY from humans and our plants. Maple trees, linden, clover, knapweed....those are the primary sources in my area. Most pretty plants that we have and plant around the yard - tulips, lilac, annuals - I rarely see bees on them. The bees would rather be in the scrubby fields covered in invasive clover or knapweed than buzzing around our impatience (ok wrong spelling for the flower :) ).
I agree that some of the newer hybrids may be less appealing, but I don't see that as a problem with the bees since they don't usually rely on these. And the flowers that the bees might get something from (canola, cotton, almonds?) more than likely rely on the bees as much as the bees on them and they'd need truckloads of bees brought in anyway.
Most fruit is a bit of a conundrum - in order to keep fruit in our stores we need lots and lots of trees, and in order for that to economical we need to bring bees in to pollinate, but they also need a lot of pesticide in order to get decent apples. But they try to get the bees out before spraying. Most of the bees around orchards aren't wild bees.
Bumbles don't seem to have any problem - I got those buggers hovering all over the place!!