Method and apparatus for improving the utilization of solitary bees for pollination of crops

A processing system for solitary bees comprising:

• a) a plurality of enclosed process chambers, each containing a plurality of solitary bees;
• b) a plurality of enclosed flight chambers, each flight chamber connected to a respective process chamber by a plurality of passages, each passage having a height and a length of such size to allow bees to pass through the passage from the process chamber to the flight chamber;
• c) illumination means for selectively providing either permanent or periodic illumination to any one or more of the flight chambers, the passages being so configured that the permanent or periodic illumination to any one of the flight chamber is perceived by bees in the respective process chambers;
• d) a central plant comprising cooling means for selectively providing a periodic flow of cooled air to any one or more of the flight chambers sufficient to render bees in a selected flight chamber to an immobile condition or slow-moving condition;
• and
• e) collection means for collecting said chilled immobile bees and removing them from any one of the flight chambers.

A method of utilizing solitary bees for the pollination of crops comprising:

• determining the expected flowering dates of the crops;
• calculating the number of solitary bees required for effective pollination of the crops to ascertain a required bee count;
• incubating test groups of solitary bees to ascertain the rate of bee emergence for a given incubation period;
• placing a plurality of bees comprising at least the required bee count within a processing unit, the processing unit comprising incubation means, chilling means, and collection means;
• incubating the plurality of bees to emergence;
• chilling the emerged bees to an immobile or slow-moving condition;
• and
• collecting the chilled immobile or slow-moving bees and removing said chilled immobile or slow-moving bees from the processing unit;
• and
• delivering the bees to a location proximate to the crops.