A research project being sponsored by the Federal German Environmental Institute is symptomatic of the scale of the crisis in beekeeping in Germany. This project is designed to investigate how feasible the role of the Red Mason Bee might be as an alternative pollinator to the honey bee to compensate for the continuing decline in effective honey bee pollination resulting from a variety of factors. Fruit farmers require bees for the pollination of early flowering fruit trees, especially plums, damsonsand pears, where the quantity and quality of the resulting fruit is dependant on honey bee pollination.
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