Studies on the Year-Round Rearing of Japanese Bumblebees (Bombus spp.) and Use Them for Crop Pollination

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(1) Bombus hypocrita hypocrita, B.h.sapporoensis, B.ignitus were reared in captivity. These three species of Japanese bumblebees are relatively easy to rear and produce enough number of workers for pollination in Japanese greenhouse. Thus they were thought to be practically usable.(2) To induce colony initiation, CO2 treatment method developed by Roseler (1985) for mated B.terrestris queen to lay diploid eggs was tested for Japanese Bombus species. However, when it was applied to queens of Japanese species, they sometimes laid haploid eggs even from the beginning. Therefore, we changed the number of days from mating to the treatment for the purpose of decreasing physical load of queens. Two to 4 days of pretreatment duration was found to be best for B.h.hypocrita.(3) Cross mating experiment showed that B.terrestris male is very active in mating to the new queens of Japanese native species. Interspecific or intersubspecific copulation occurred between B.terrestris males and new queens of Japanese Bombus species belonging to the same subgenus, i.e., B.hypocrita hypocrita, B.hypocrita sapporoensis and B.ignitus. Because of these potential problems, pollination of crops with native species instead of introduced species was recommended.(4) Buzz foraging by laboratory-reared colonies of the Japanese bumblebees to the greenhouse tomato were evaluated. Both flower-visit frequency and fruit setting rate were comparable to those of commercial B.terrestris.