Once upon a time on usenet Derald wrote:
"~misfit~" wrote:



Probably because bumble bee nests are short-lived, a season at most.
However it's possible to bone up on all things bumble bee and make
(or purchase) excelleny nesting sites and encourage (or capture) new
young queens and establish new nests.

Also a lot of these commercial 'products' are aimed at greenhouse
growers of tomatoes and include a (limited) supply of 'nectar'
(often diluted low grade apis honey). While bumble bees can exists
mostly on pollen, as in a tomato greenhouse, they also need a
quantity of nectar. As tomatoes don't provide it commercially
supplied for growers nests incorporate a certain amount, enough to
keep the nest viable for six weeks or so, depending on supplier.
Oh, I understand that they're selling descendants of introduced
animals as pollination tools for the descendants of introduced plants.
Offhand, I can think of many reasons why so-called "naturalization"
wouldn't be possible. I can think of more why it wouldn't be
desirable :-)
Here in the States indigenous species are being sold and I'd
suppose the market to be off-season growers, urban and other gardeners
where habitat no longer exists.

Habitat is one of the problems with bumble bees in particular. In most
'developed countries' hedgerow and 'wild areas' are becoming increasingly
scarce. Every little bit of land is being used for something, farming is
more intensive and houses get closer together.... Then people wonder why
there are so few bumble bees (etc.). Honestly, I don't know where they
expect them to live. If a nest is discovered it's often destroyed in case
someone gets stung. sheakes head

When I was a lad we were taught to live alongside 'nature', not to
annihilate it lest it sting or bite us. I destroy introduced wasp nests if I
find them because they do nothing good and a lot of bad. However if I see a
bumble bee nest or honey bee swarm I just treat it with the respect that it
deserves.

There are no bumble bees in Australia (other than Tasmania) and consequently
it's complicated for them to grow certain crops. They're trying to enlist
the help of a native bee (blue banded?) that is known to buzz pollinate and
are working on how to 'commercialise' it, to get its number s up into
'useful' figures and keep them there in desired locations.

(There's a big anti-bumble lobby who're concerned that certain
currently-non-invasive introduced plants would become major problems if an
efficient buzz pollinator was present. A bit of a Catch-22 if you ask me
as, if they massively increase numbers of the native buzz pollinator then
surely that will facilitate the spread of these weeds?)
--
Shaun.

"Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy
little classification in the DSM*."
David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
(*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)