2 million families annually: why do scientists breed bumblebees in laboratories

The fact that the number of bees is catastrophically reduced in all regions of the planet, the media report regularly. For many years now scientists and beekeepers from around the world have been trying to solve this problem. But, it turns out, the situation with bumblebees is no better: the number of these furry relatives of bees has also decreased markedly over the past decades, several species have already disappeared and a few are on the verge of extinction. For their conservation and productive use, scientists began to breed bumblebees in special laboratories. But this is not such an easy process as it might seem at first glance, and the leading organizations in the field of bumblebee farming keep their professional achievements in the strictest confidence.

Bumblebee family

Bumblebees are excellent pollinators, and their work is widely used in greenhouse complexes for growing vegetables in more than 50 countries. They also bring great benefits by pollinating agricultural plants in the open field, and their role has increased markedly after a decrease in the number of bees, also performing an important function of pollination of plants. In this regard, their breeding in laboratories has become the key to successful greenhouse crop production, and more and more companies are joining the cultivation of bumblebees.

In the bumblebee growing laboratory

About 2 million bumblebee colonies are produced annually in the world, which are mainly supplied to greenhouses in Europe, the USA, Canada and Japan. And the first who began to breed bumblebees in the laboratory in the 80s of the last century were specialists from the Netherlands and Belgium. More than 50% of all bumblebee colonies supplied to the world market are produced by 3 companies located in Belgium, the Netherlands and Israel. There are companies for the production of bumblebee colonies in Belarus and Russia, but in our country there is a shortage of bumblebees for greenhouse plants, so they have to be imported from other countries.

Bumblebee families prepared for shipment to greenhouse plants

Bumblebee family in a greenhouse with tomatoes

Breeding bumblebees in captivity is a very time-consuming process that requires special microclimatic conditions, skilled personnel and special equipment. The most common captive-bred species is the Bombus terrestris bumblebee and its varieties. Along with it, bumblebees Bombus impatiens and Bombus ignitus are grown.

Earth Bumblebee Bombus terrestris

Breeding a bumblebee colony begins with a bumblebee uterus, which, after mating with drones, lays eggs. A colony begins to grow out of young bumblebees, but the process of forming a bumblebee family under laboratory conditions is faster than in nature. After the bumblebee colony reaches the number of 70-80 individuals, it is sent for sale and goes to greenhouse plants. Bumblebees work several times faster than bees, while not so demanding on the conditions of detention, tolerate lower temperatures and insufficient lighting. For this reason, an increasing number of greenhouse companies prefer bumblebees and annually purchase new colonies of bumblebees for pollination of their vegetables.