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What's wrong with the modern honeybee?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

June 5, 2002

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Gray's Manual of Botany (1989 reprint, 1950 edition) called it, "A most beautiful tree, sometimes 40 m. high and with trunk 2-3 m. in diameter...." The tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera Linnaeus) is among the tallest growing of the North American hardwoods; it blooms in May or June with pale green and orange flowers, one at the tip of each branch.

Tulip poplars belong to the Magnolia family, one of the few tree families which bloom with large attractive flowers.
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Tulip Tree by Wendy Hollender
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Tulip poplar flowers provide nectar to attract pollinators, so much nectar that sometimes a fine mist of the sugar water can be felt under the tree.

Honeybees (Apis mellifera L.) must visit between a hundred and a thousand flowers of typical nectar plants like clover or thyme to fill their honey stomach. A tulip poplar flower produces enough nectar to fill the honey stomach in one visit. The honey from tulip poplar is dark and appears a deep crimson when held up to light.

But an unforeseen problem has arisen with honeybees and tulip poplars. In an effort to create 'more-honey' honeybees, we bred bigger honeybees. Tulip trees grow so tall that even wild honeybees have trouble flying to the flowers.

Dee Lusby (pers. comm.) explains, "...the aerodynamics change for flight...Bigger bees cannot fly so high as the wind currents even a few meters higher than the normal 15-20 feet make flying unstable for them."

In 1785, George Washington planted two tulip trees at Mount Vernon. These 217-year-old trees stand about 100 feet tall; the lowest branches are higher than bees can fly. The trees did not produce seeds for many years. To ensure seed from these trees, every year since 1989, arborists with the National Arboretum pollinate the flowers with cotton-tipped swabs from a lift bucket.

The Agricultural Research and Development Center of Ohio State University has a beautiful photograph of tulip poplar flowers. To view the photograph, click on the link:

http://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/biocontrol/tppoplar.htm

Dee A. Lusby is a beekeeper, writer, and advocate for 'natural system' beekeeping in Tucson, Arizona. To learn more about beekeeping, click on the link:

http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/

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