Unique Muskoka August

Enter the native bees.
Chan’s studies have taken her beyond the
beehive to the rest of the enormous
superfamily that comprises bees. There are
400 species of bee in Ontario, with names
like mason bees, leafcutters and squash bees.
Roughly two per cent specialize in farm
crops. Many focus strictly on one type of
plant. The aptly named squash bee pollinates
squash, pumpkin and zucchini. Bumblebees
excel at pollinating tomatoes, and are often
kept in greenhouses for that purpose. “I
consider the bumblebee as the workhorse of
the bee world, in the wild and in agriculture,”
she says.
And native bees are hardier. Where
honeybees stop work in cold and wet
weather, the wild bees continue blithely on.
“Native bees are the true Canadians,”
Chan says with a laugh.
Domesticated or wild, all bees are facing
threats to their breeding success on many
fronts. Smith laments how difficult it has
become to keep bees. “In the early ‘80s, it
was awesome,” he recalls. “We didn’t have
the diseases, the viruses and the mites that
Nancy Yanaky, 40” x 52”, Algonquin
Paul Garbett, 60” x 40”, Wolf
August 2016 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 21