Honey bees and other pollinators are critically important to securing the nation’s food supply and providing ecosystem services that insure plant diversity, soil stability and species richness. Fruit and seed yields increase when many bee species are present – whether in undisturbed ecosystems or in crops such as apples or almonds where pollination by both honey bees and native bees generates greater yields and better-quality fruit. There are more than 4,000 species of bees in the United States, with many bumblebee and solitary-bee species remaining to be described and life histories understood.
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Diana Cox-Foster
Gloria DeGrandi-Hoffman
Diana Cox-Foster is the research leader of the Agricultural Research Service’s Pollinating Insect-Biology, Management, Systematics Research Unit in Logan, Utah. Gloria DeGrandi-Hoffman is the research leader at the Agricultural Research Service’s Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Tucson, Arizona.
