Bees are the underappreciated workers of the garden. They forage for pollen and spread it around the yard, and they're the reason many plants bear fruit and vegetables.
"We tend to take bees for granted, but I can't emphasize enough how important they are for the garden," says David Marder, president of the Orange County Beekeeper's Assn. and owner of Beebusters, a Laguna Beach company that specializes in bee removal.
"Crops like almonds are entirely dependent on bees for pollination," he says.
Bees are critical in the garden, agrees Eric Mussen, extension apiculturist with the entomology department at UC Davis.
"Plants such as cucumbers, squash and melons, as well as many fruit and nut trees, won't produce a crop unless visited by bees. Although some plants can produce without pollination, their crops tend to be inferior," he says.
Unpollinated fruits and vegetables will be malformed and only partially developed. A strawberry that wasn't visited by a bee, for example, will be small. The more pollination, the bigger and better the quality of the fruit and vegetables. And a number of plants will not produce seed without the help of bees.
"Bees move plant pollen from the reproductive parts of one flower to another," explains Mussen. This results in seed formation, which eventually becomes a fruit, vegetable, seed or nut. "Those fruits and vegetables that come from a flower usually need pollination."
Until recent years, the European honeybee (Apis mellifera) did most backyard pollinating, but these bees have taken a few hits in the last several years. Two mite infestations wiped out many honeybees, and the recent encroachment of Africanized honeybees (Apis mellifera scupellata) in the county has put them at greater risk.
Known as "killer bees," Africanized bees can interbreed with European honeybees and quickly transform the behavior of the bees. Unfortunately, when the two types mate, the aggressive behavior is the dominant trait.
The threat of European hives becoming Africanized has caused many Orange County cities to prohibit backyard beekeeping, which some say is not the answer.
"I think it's going to be environmentally detrimental to remove the hives, because all we'll be left with is Africanized bees," says Marder, who moved his bees out of his property in Laguna Beach to a more remote location.
