Conference Paper or Lecture

The narrow, long corolla of rabbiteye blueberries (Vaccinium ashei) presents a challenge to foraging pollinators, particularly honey bees (Apis mellifera), and variations in this floral morphology appear to alter the species composition of the visiting bee community. In particular, the rabbiteye var. ‘Premier’ exhibits abnormal flower morphology, with shortened and split corollas that appeared to affect the community of bee pollinators visiting flowers. We conducted observations to compare bee visitation rates at ‘Premier’ flowers to other common rabbiteye varieties (‘Powderblue’ and ‘Brightwell’) that have more typical flowers. Timed observations were conducted during 2009 and 2010, and significantly more A. mellifera and significantly fewer wild bees visited ‘Premier’ flowers when compared to other rabbiteye cultivars. This apparent resource partitioning may reduce cross-pollination, which is important for successful rabbiteye blueberry production but may also increase A. mellifera visitation. A similar visitation rate increase by A. mellifera in blueberries has been suggested to occur following nectar robbing by carpenter bees (Xylocopa spp.).

Paper presented at NABREW Conference, Paper Session I:Blueberry Pollinators, on June 24, 2014, Atlantic City, N.J.

Text

doi:10.7282/T361120H

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