Because of the lame Brummer!: Why are bumblebees now bred in Switzerland?

This is due to the efficient pollination of bumblebees. Their buzz is not in vain, because bumblebees use their flight muscles to generate frequencies that shake pollen in flowers while at the same time collecting nectar. Thanks to their body size and the ability to warm themselves with their muscles, bumblebees are more resilient and robust than their relatives: hard-working bees fly at lower temperatures when they prefer to stay in the nest.

Important for early maturers

This is why bumblebees are particularly important to early bloomers, some of which bloom at the end of February, such as apricots. Or strawberries from the Diener farm: “The first flowers appear towards the end of March, when the bees are usually too cold to fly. They also don’t like being in the greenhouse.” Using bumblebees increases yields by up to 40 percent. Until now, Diener has ordered bumblebee colonies from abroad, as every farmer does. Millions of wasp nests are shipped around the world each year, of which about 7,000 are sent to Switzerland, mostly from the Netherlands, Belgium or Spain.

But since last year, Swiss bumblebees have been flying in the greenhouse in Lindenhof, they come from neighboring Tägerwilen, the first local breeding in this country. There, agricultural biologist Feri Jusko (40) breeds bumblebees from the area. Courtesy of the canton of Thurgau, it catches resident black bumblebees and produces its own colonies from them. This is much more complex than in bees and takes place in the laboratory. The advantage of local bumblebees: “This way we create more genetic diversity. Also, bumblebees adapt better to the environment and therefore their immune system. This makes them less susceptible to diseases.”

Jusko is originally from Slovakia and as a biologist and beekeeper he specializes in non-traditional breeding methods. He realized the risk of supply shortages for bumblebees in Switzerland, especially during the pandemic: “By establishing our own farms, we will become less dependent on imports and can produce local bumblebees.” Jusko is responsible for the biodiversity spin-off research project at the family business HTC High-Tech-Center.

under threat of extinction

The last project on bumblebees came from here. The wasp colony is delivered in a nest box. Important: After your arrival, you should leave the bumblebees out of direct sun for two hours to calm down. Then the flight hole opens and we set off. A deposit is taken for the Utz box, so the project also follows circular economy principles. Until now, the plastic boxes of imported bumblebees were discarded as garbage and burned after the colony died.

According to Jusko, it is usually private individuals who pollinate kitchen gardens with bumblebees. Many acquire bumblebees and the wild plants they pollinate with them, knowing that many species are in danger of extinction. “According to various studies, a large decline in many wasp species can be observed in Europe and North America,” says Jusko.

Monocultures, the lack of structural diversity in nature, as well as pesticides are responsible for this: “Chemicals are not only toxic to animals, but also disrupt their sensory perception,” says the expert. This is because bumblebees and other pollinating insects can detect electric fields emanating from the flowers of plants. “This way, bumblebees can determine where to fly for their nectar.” They pollinate less if this communication is disrupted.

Provide Switzerland with its own bumblebees

A bumblebee colony lives only one season. They are the only insects in which eggs are hatched. Now in the summer, mating young queens and drones hatch from eggs. When the old queen dies in the fall, her successors seek winter places to establish a new colony in the spring. “This way, you can support your own biodiversity in your environment because more native bumblebees settle here,” says Jusko. “To meet the ever-increasing demand, I developed my own breeding method that allows us to breed regional wasp species all year round.”

Long-term goals are ambitious. “We want to offer an alternative to importing bumblebees for agriculture in Switzerland,” says Maria Larsson, board member and co-owner of HTC High-Tech-Center. “In this way, we develop sustainable security of supply in Swiss food production without controlled cultivation.”