When Sergio Vega noticed he was losing some of his honeybees, he grew concerned.
The graduate biology student is also a beekeeper and knows how important honeybees are for pollination and biodiversity.
Honeybees are the most common kind of bee, introduced hundreds of years ago to pollinate fields and flowers.
“The honey bee is a domesticated one and we manage it and it's very unlikely that it goes extinct,” Vega said.
But they’re threatened by pesticides and by a mite that preys on them. If they continue to die-off it could have a major impact on the environment.
Researchers like Vega have been searching for a fill-in bee to take over pollination of fields and flowers.
Vega and his fellow researchers have been laying out pan traps, to attract wild bees to a blueberry field.
“Blueberry fields require an important number of pollinators,” he said. “Not honeybees but native bees, so in this case we're talking about bumblebees, solitaire bees, and carpenter bees.”
The goal is to determine what kind of bees are in the field and land in the traps.
Concordia professor Jean-Phillippe Lessard is guiding the research team. He says they specifically chose blueberry fields surrounded by dense woods.
“We're trying to understand, what are the characteristics of the landscape that promote their livelihood, that promote their health,” he said.
