Title: Researchers say bees need weeds to boost crop yields
[ABC News Nov 5, 2012] AUSTRALIA -- Researchers say increasing native bee populations in broadacre crops can boost yields by up to 30 per cent. Adelaide University researcher Katja Hogendoorn has spent the past year studying bee behaviour in crops in the mid-north and Yorke Peninsula of South Australia. She says providing more food for the bees, in ways such as boosting native vegetation, can increase their numbers and improve the pollination in crops such as canola. "Canola only flowers for a short period of time and the bees are there for a longer time, so they would need extra feed, and also in years with crop rotation grains are grown [and] they will need extra food as well," she said. "If you do not have native vegetation you generally have some weeds like cape weed. If you remove all of it then you would remove that resource for them (the bees) as well, and be considerate with pesticides. "Bees are insects and they will die when insecticides are used." ${imageDescription} Comment
