Bees Play a Big Role in Ohio Agriculture

In partnership with: Ohio Department of Agriculture

Bees can get a bad rap, but Ohio farmers recognize the critical role these prolific pollinators play in the success of the state’s agriculture industry. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), more than a third of all crops in the U.S. depend on insect pollination, and nationwide, bee pollination accounts for approximately $19 billion in increased yield. In Ohio, the crops most dependent on honeybee pollination account for more than $60 million in annual sales.

Buzzworthy Facts

“We grow a number of crops here in Ohio that benefit from bee pollination,” says Reed Johnson, Ph.D., associate professor of entomology at The Ohio State University. “Top of the list are the cucurbit crops – pickles, pumpkins, and watermelons – which the growers will actually bring in or pay to rent honeybee colonies in order to get good pollination of their crops. It’s safe to say a lot of these cucurbit crops wouldn’t be grown without bees to pollinate them.”

Johnson studies honeybee toxicology, pharmacology, and the relationship between pollinators and their environment. Ohio is home to more than 450 species of bees, most of which are solitary bees that do not live in colonies. Some bee species, such as the honeybee and bumblebee, are commonly known, but others, such as the sweat bee, are less familiar pollinators.

“My favorite one is the squash bee, which is a ground nester,” Johnson says. “These bees like to nest in pumpkin fields or other cucurbit fields. They have actually co-evolved with the cucurbit crops and can be really excellent pollinators of those crops when they’re present.”

See more: Ohio State Apiarist Speaks For the Bees

Despite the diversity, Johnson says the state’s bee populations are in danger of declining not only because of pesticides and disease but also because of dwindling landscapes hospitable to wild bees.

“One of the major threats to honeybee populations are diseases, some of which are quite transmissible. The other problem is the pesticide use, particularly insecticides that kill bees,” Johnson says. “Habitat is a real bottleneck for pollinator health. Bees need different types of flowers to flourish throughout the year, and in a lot of landscapes, there’s not the diversity of flowers that there once was. Anything we can do to plant pollinator-friendly flowers, even in small areas, can really be beneficial.”

Bee an Advocate

Bee decline is why the work of Denise Ellsworth and the honeybee and native pollinator education program at The Ohio State University is so important.

Ellsworth helps create awareness of the importance of bees to agriculture and publishes a Pollinator Quick Guide to help communities and average gardeners learn what they can do to support the state’s native bee population.

“We help create awareness and hopefully appreciation of the importance of bees to what people are eating. One in every three bites of food is related to insect pollinators, most often bees, but many people don’t know that,” Ellsworth says. “We must educate people about the importance of bees.”

The program maintains several small, educational demonstration gardens stocked with native perennial plants hospitable to bees. The gardens serve as a template for how these native plants can be incorporated into the landscape.

See more: 9 Fascinating Facts About Honeybees

“Honeybees are generalists, which means they go to lots of different plants. And they need food as early as when they emerge in spring, all the way through late summer and into fall,” Ellsworth says. “It’s important that the flowering plants in our landscapes and gardens also span the seasons.”

Protect and Preserve

Chia-Hua Lin, a research scientist at Rothenbuhler Honey Bee Research Laboratory at The Ohio State University, also studies how the state’s landscape can support foraging and the overall health of honeybee colonies.

“We have projects tracking the growth of honeybee colonies, and we compare their weight changes throughout the seasons,” Lin says. “We have some evidence that the flower nectar produced by soybeans is a significant resource that supports honeybees and likely other pollinators in this landscape.”

Lin says her research team is also analyzing the pollen and honey collected by honeybee colonies to learn which flower resources the bees are utilizing.

“We’re trying to identify throughout the foraging season what are the most important resources, wildflower species, or even crop species for the bees,” Lin says. “Then when beekeepers are considering where to place their apiaries, we might be able to provide some information in terms of the kind of landscape and habitat that would be best for the health of their hives.”

See more: 12 Flowers to Beautify Your Landscape This Fall

If you are interested in raising bees or want to know more about bees in general, visit ohioline.osu. edu/factsheet/ent-78.