BIO-BEE Natural Pollination Visit our new website at http://www.bio-bee.com

Since 1990, the BIO-BEE company at Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu has been mass producing the bumblebee Bombus terrestis, for natural pollination of greenhouse vegetables. The company is a joint venture between Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu and Koppert Biosystems of the Netherlands, the worlds largest producer and distributor of beneficial organisms for pest management and natural pollination in agricultural crops.

The bumblebee is an ideal pollinator for protected crops and an important backup for outdoor crops during marginal seasons. Greenhouse tomato is the major crop, but other crops such as greenhouse sweet pepper, strawberry, eggplant, melon and courgette, and outdoor fruit crops like cherry, plum and blueberry also respond well.

Sophisticated mass production of bumblebees enables BIO-BEE to provide pollination services to thousands of hectares of greenhouse tomatoes in Israel. Bumblebee hives are exported, in increasing quantities, to Europe, Japan, South Korea and Russia.

The research and development team at BIO-BEE is constantly improving the quality of the bumblebees and their hives, seeking new crops as economically feasible candidates for application of natural pollination and the integration of natural pollination with environmentally friendly pest control regime, which includes natural enemies produced by our sister company Bio-Bee Biological Systems.

Why Bumblebees and not honeybees? The bumblebee is capable of vibrating the flower using the unique "buzz pollination" mechanism. The tomato flower needs vibration for proper pollination and fruit set under greenhouse conditions. The bumblebee does this in an optimal way far superior to other methods. The bumblebee is less affected by extreme weather conditions than the honeybee. The bumblebee is better adapted to perform under confined greenhouse conditions. The bumblebee is less inclined to look for alternative sources of pollen and nectar outside the greenhouse. Therefore, it will stay in the greenhouse even if the latter is opened for ventilation purposes

Pollination Services.

In the greenhouse these are provided by bumblebee commercial hives. Each hive is inhabited by a single queen, 50-60 workers and the same number of larvae. In a tomato greenhouse, a commercial hive pollinates about half an acre for 8-12 weeks. The first hive establishes the "base population" of bumblebees in the greenhouse. Subsequently, more hives are introduced to replace old hives with new ones, as part of the pollination services.