by Perera and Karunaratne
 |
The wild bee, Lithurgus atratus collecting
large yellow pollen grains on anthers of an
okra flower. |
Bees are declining in a fast rate due
to various natural and human induced reasons. Therefore, bee pollinated crops
suffer from insufficient pollination that leads to the production of low yield,
low quality fruits and seeds.
Sri Lanka is a home for 150 species of wild bees. However, their contribution
to pollinate crops is not well understood. Previous researchers have found out
that there are crops that need specialized bees to collect any carry its
flowers’ special pollen grains. Okra/ladies fingers (Abelmoschus esculentus) of the family Malvaceae is known to produce
large spiny pollen grains carried by a group of special bees. However, no
attempt has been made in Sri Lanka to investigate the effect of wild bees to
pollinate okra, which is a widely grown vegetable crop in the country.
Therefore, we investigated the contribution of the wild bees in Sri Lanka for
the production of okra compared to hand pollination and when bees are absent.