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Bees as an alternative to pesticides

Biological pesticides, from bacterial toxins to fungi delivered by bees, are a hot trend in agriculture. But harnessing nature is no easy task. Brooke Borel investigates:

"The four boxes sit on a wooden pallet in the middle of four acres of organic strawberries, on a farm just north of Toronto. They’re each roughly the size of a shoebox, with air vents perforating their lids. And they’re buzzing—a light drone that tickles the eardrums.

"I’d planned to see these boxes for months, selecting a week in late spring when the Canadian strawberry fields would be in bloom and the weather, I hoped, would be reasonably dry and warm. Instead, bruised clouds fill the sky and a frigid wind cuts through my borrowed jacket.

"The bumble bees inside the boxes don’t seem to like it, either. My host from Bee Vectoring Technology, a Toronto startup, tells me the insects prefer calmer days and warmer temperatures. In better weather, I might have seen the pollinators buzz out of the nickel-size holes at the ends of the boxes at a regular clip, dipping from flower to flower in the surrounding field, each carrying an unusual delivery: a white dust formulated to protect the strawberries from a type of rot known as Botrytis cinerea, or gray mold. The dust contains a benign fungus, Clonostachys rosea. It colonizes the inside of plants, blocking the growth of the nastier mold—a biologically based alternative to a cocktail of synthetic fungicides, which are getting more difficult to use.

"Todd Mason, BVT’s lead scientist, strides into the strawberry field, ruddy-faced and in short-sleeves despite the weather. He raps on a hive. The buzzing crescendos, but no bees come out to investigate the source of the disruption."

Read the full story at bioGraphic
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