Solutions for Farmers and Food for Bees

Background/Question/Methods

Agricultural biodiversity is declining worldwide, threatening food security and human health. In Canada, 70% of fruit and vegetable pollination depends on wild bees. Bees also play a major role of bees in pollinating wild plants, thus maintaining the integrity of terrestrial ecosystems. However, populations of native bees are declining, and several species are threatened with extinction. Main threats are habitat loss, parasitic infections, malnutrition, pesticide exposure and climate change that individually or interactively affect bee populations. Nonetheless, most of the focus has been on non-native and managed honeybees, whilst information and actions on wild bees are comparatively lacking. To preserve native bees whilst ensuring human food production, we must:Re-establish a two-way dialogue with farmers and integrate their considerations when initiating conservation research and projects;Improve our knowledge of the nutrition and ecophysiology of native bees;Transfer scientific knowledge to develop pollinator-friendly and sustainable farming practices quickly and efficiently.Working with more than 30 partners, including farmers, beekeepers, ENGOs, companies, government advisers, and academics, we co-constructed a project to identify concrete solutions to improve the resistance and resilience of native bees in Canada while offering solutions to farmers that are relevant in a commercial production context.

Results/Conclusions

Our preliminary results show that:< ![if !supportLists] >1. < ![endif] >Integrating and considering both the ecological needs of bees and the socio-economic reality of farmers is possible. Using online surveys, we identified plants or plant associations with high agro-economic value for farmers in Eastern Canada and high nutritional or medicinal values for native bees;< ![if !supportLists] >2. < ![endif] >Pollen from native early-flowering trees such as red maple has high nutritional values for native bumblebee queens, increasing their reproductive success by 50% compared to a mix of wildflowers;< ![if !supportLists] >3. < ![endif] >Fostering knowledge transfer about bees directly to farmers offers promising avenues for bee conservation. In collaboration with farmers, we planted sunflowers (whose pollen has a high medicinal value for bumblebees) in commercial greenhouses. We found that (i) sunflower can be grown in greenhouses, (ii) farmers show a strong interest in such bee-friendly approaches and (iii) sunflower presence improved the health of commercial workers used for pollination. This could ultimately reduce pathogen spillover to wild bees.This project is ongoing but already values the use of a co-constructive approach and offers promising avenues for sustainable and bee-friendly agriculture practices in Canada.