Honeybees and other Insect Pollinators of Cultivated Plants: A Review

Abstract

Insects are viewed from the harmful perspectives and aimed at killing them through several means including indiscriminate use of deadly chemicals. If good judgment made keeping views on sustainable crop production, natural balance and pollution free environment, they are important component of the ecosystem and their beneficial aspects are immense. One of them is that insects provide pollination service to plants. The study showed that over 50 species of insects visited flowers of 17 different species of selected crops during flowering periods. The visiting preferences of insects to flowers of different crops differed among the crop species and insect species as well. In fact, of the total pollination activities, over 80% is performed by insects and bees contribute nearly 80% of the total insect pollination, and therefore, they are considered the best pollinators. The manmade agro-ecosystem exerted pressure and forced to decline pollinators and their diversity, which resulted in reduced agricultural productivity again threatening biodiversity. Management of wide diversities of honeybees and other beneficial insects and flowering plant species occurring in Nepal help to maintain diversity of flora and bee fauna, pollination and reward hive products in the service of mankind. This paper covers honeybees and other insect species visiting various crop flowers. Key words : Pollination, honeybees, insect, flower visitors J. Inst. Agric. Anim. Sci. 27:1-23 (2006)