Strange James P
USDA-ARS, Pollinating Insect Research Unit, 255 BNR, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322-5310.
J Econ Entomol. 2015 Jun;108(3):873-9. doi: 10.1093/jee/tov078. Epub 2015 Apr 17.
Bumble bees (Bombus) are the primary pollinators of tomatoes grown in greenhouses and can significantly increase fruit weight compared with tomatoes that receive no supplemental pollination. More than a million colonies are sold worldwide annually to meet pollination needs. Due to mounting concerns over the transportation of bumble bees outside of their native ranges, several species native to western North American are currently being investigated as potential commercial pollinators. Here, two western, Bombus huntii Greene and Bombus vosnesenskii Radoszkowski, and one eastern species, Bombus impatiens Cresson, are compared for their efficacy as pollinators of greenhouse-grown tomatoes. In two experiments, colonies were placed in greenhouses and compared with control plants that received no supplemental pollination. In the first experiment, seed set was significantly increased with B. huntii pollination in one variety of cherry tomatoes. In the second experiment comparing all three bumble bee species, fruit weight was an average of 25.2 g heavier per fruit pollinated by bees versus the control, and the number of days to harvest was 2.9 d shorter for bee-pollinated fruit. In some rounds of pollination, differences were found among bumble bee species, but these were inconsistent across replicates and not statistically significant overall. Additionally, fruit weight was shown to be highly correlated to fruit diameter and seed set in all tests and, thus, is shown to be a reliable metric for assessing pollination in future studies. These results suggest that commercialization of western bumble bees is a viable alternative to the current practices of moving of nonnative bees into western North America to pollinate tomatoes.
熊蜂（ Bombus ）是温室种植番茄的主要传粉者，与未接受人工辅助授粉的番茄相比，能显著增加果实重量。每年全球售出超过100万个蜂群以满足授粉需求。由于对熊蜂在其原生范围之外运输的担忧日益增加，目前正在对北美西部原产的几种熊蜂作为潜在商业传粉者进行调查。在此，比较了两种西部熊蜂，即亨氏熊蜂（ Bombus huntii Greene ）和沃氏熊蜂（ Bombus vosnesenskii Radoszkowski ），以及一种东部熊蜂，即西方熊蜂（ Bombus impatiens Cresson ）作为温室种植番茄传粉者的效率。在两项实验中，将蜂群放置在温室中，并与未接受人工辅助授粉的对照植株进行比较。在第一个实验中，在一种樱桃番茄品种中，亨氏熊蜂授粉显著提高了坐果率。在比较所有三种熊蜂物种的第二个实验中，蜜蜂授粉的果实平均单果重量比对照重25.2克，蜜蜂授粉果实的收获天数比对照短2.9天。在某些授粉轮次中，发现熊蜂物种之间存在差异，但这些差异在重复实验中不一致，总体上也无统计学意义。此外，在所有测试中，果实重量与果实直径和坐果率高度相关，因此，在未来研究中被证明是评估授粉的可靠指标。这些结果表明，西部熊蜂商业化是目前将非本地蜜蜂引入北美西部为番茄授粉做法的可行替代方案。
