bees and bejo: natural partners in seed production
B
ejo is an international producer of vegetable seeds. Honeybees are perhaps our most important employees. We keep our own bees and are internationally active in bee breeding and research. Alongside better vegetable varieties, we also work to improve bee colonies. Bees play an important role in the fertilization of plants, including food crops. For a plant to bear fruit or form seeds, the (male) pollen must first make its way to the (female) pistil of the flower. Some types of plants, such as red beet and spinach, are pollinated by the wind. Others, such as lettuce, are self-pollinating. But many of the plants that are essential for our food supply rely on insects for pollination.
Honeybees: Pollination champions Nature provides plenty of pollinators, including bumblebees and solitary wild bees. But honeybees are pollination champions. They can be so effective because they can be used purposefully and in large numbers. Each hive that a beekeeper places in a field contains a colony of some 20,000 to 40,000 pollinators. Not surprisingly, fruit growers and growers of some fruit vegetables and open field crops work closely with professional beekeepers. Bejo’s core business makes us uniquely aware of the importance of bees: without pollination, there would be no seeds. We grow seeds in greenhouses and on fields all over the world, so we have tens of thousands of honeybee colonies working for us. “At Bejo we have our own beekeepers and are active in bee research. That way we can gain more experience with beekeeping and a greater understanding of bees and pollination,” says Youri Draaijer, Coordinator of international seed production research at Bejo. “With our research we hope to find out more about the typical characteristics of bee colonies and bee types, including foraging zeal, or the willingness to collect nectar, and tendency to swarm, or leave the hive. But the main focus of our research is bee health.”
