A review on role of bumblebee pollination in fruits and vegetables

Abstract

Bumblebees are efficient pollinator of various fruit and vegetable crops as compare to honeybees under protected condition as well as open conditions. The cross pollination carried out by bumblebees known as myophilly. Bumblebees have tend to forage faster than honeybees, pollinate more flowers per bee, long tongue prefers flower with long corolla tube. At low temperature and low light intensities, the foraging activities of bumblebees are more efficient and cost-effective alternate to hand/manual pollination even. They are perfect pollinator of flowers of family Solanaceae because sonication is required for pollination. Now a days, the population of bumblebees is decreasing at global level due to indiscriminate use of pesticides, loss of natural habitats, mechanization in agriculture and climate changes. The conservation techniques like modification of landscape such as promoting wild flowers and creation of niches for their hibernation, survival and reproduction etc. which provide favorable conditions to increase the bumblebees abundance, foraging behavior and their efficiency. The scientists should attempts for evaluating the pollination efficiency of bumblebees to boost the production of vegetable and fruit crops.