Pollination efficiency of honeybees on tropical fruit grown in plastic greenhouse.
Mizuno S.
Author Affiliation: Faculty of Agriculture, Tamagawa University 1-1, Tamagawagakuen 6-chome, Machida City, Tokyo 194-8610, Japan.
Research for Tropical Agriculture 1 : 73-77
Abstract : This experiment report was written for the symposium 'The Role of the Honeybee in Tropical Agriculture' that took place in Tamagawa University, Tokyo, Japan, in 2008. Currently, the pollination of the tropical fruits produced in Japan is depending on artificial pollination and in this report, 2 cases of tropical fruit production (mango and passion fruit) with pollination by honeybees are shown. The first case was mango and the cultivar Irwin was grown in a test orchard in Kagoshima prefecture with 3 species of honeybees, Apis mellifera, Apis cerana japonica and Bombus ignitus during 2003-05. The results showed that the rates of seeded fruit from the area that were pollinated by Apis mellifera and Apis cerana japonica were around 70% and many fruits weighed over 200 g. Therefore the pollination efficiency was significantly high. The second case was passion fruit and cultivar Summer Queen was grown in the test greenhouses with Apis mellifera, Apis cerana japonica and Bombus ignitus during 2005-06. The results showed that the pollination by these honeybees caused the downsize of fruit and further study was required.