Bumblebees Have A New Job: Delivering Organic Pesticides

[apisbees]

Bumblebees Have A New Job: Delivering Organic Pesticides
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3051789/bumblebees-have-a-new-job-delivering-organic-pesticides

[neillsayers]

WOW

Now if we can only figure out how to get them to harvest!

[efmesch]

After reading the article carefully, it seems obvious to me that the writer of the story doesn't really know the difference between bees and bumble bees.  She seems to use the terms inter changeably and not quite apropriately.   

[Gypsi]

true, but it is still a very nice idea and anything that helps bumbles continue I think is a plus. They are quite endangered here.

[lazy shooter]

We have plenty of bumble bees at De Leon and Brownwood.  I have a nest of them under some old lumber in my back pasture.  I stepped on the lumber and a goodly bunch of them began to swarm around the opposite end of the lumber.  The lumber is old and so warped that it has no value to me, so I am going to leave the bumble bees alone.

There are a lot of bumble bees around the ponds on my property. 

[pistolpete]

I'm reasonably certain that this article is supposed to be about honey bees, not bumble bees.  The company in question is working with honey bees.  After all, how many farmers have bumble bee hives?

[lazy shooter]

How much credit can be given to a writer that doesn't know the difference between honey bees and bumble bees?

[apisbees]

Here is a link to the company website.
http://beevt.com/wp/
Bumble bees are raised for the pollination of greenhouse crops. From the information on their site most of the testing has been done with bumble bees, and so far their product is used to control fungus that cause molds  and fruit drop. It does this by

BVT CR -7 rapidly out competes other fungi and bacteria for the nutrients that occur on plant surfaces. It gets there first, quickly colonizing tissue. Not only does this help fruit growers grow in a more profitable and sustainable manner, it does it with a 100% natural organically certified solution

[efmesch]

What I think they tried to get across was: Bumble bees for use in greenhouses, Honey bees for use with field crops.   

Sometimes we all somehow get messed up when we try to say something and it doesn't come out quite right.   

The winter before last, I loaned one of my sons a few hives for pollination in his greenhouses.  He hoped to save the cost of buying commercially raised bumble bees to do the job.  Unfortunately, the bees didn't do a good job at all and they returned home as considerably weakened hives.  Bumble bees are simply more suited for the indoor work than are honey bees.

[apisbees]

A bumblebee will confine its world the the confines of a green house. Honey bees will fly to the glass and beet their wings off trying to extend their forage range.
not only that but Bumblebees are a much better pollinator. A colony of 200 bumblebees will provide better pollination than a hive of 20,000 honey bees.

[iddee]

Add this.... Bumble bees will fly low and go in and out when the side curtains are open. Honey bees will fly upward and when they can't exit the top, they will stay up there and die.

[Gypsi]

I am debating on taking the screens off of my greenhouse.  I have bumbles here but would love a "hive" in there