The Importance of Wild Insects in Crop Pollination

Introduction

Everyone knows honey bees do all of the pollination for our pollination-dependent crops … right? Wrong. I’m guessing most people who read this column probably know there are also other insects that pollinate our crops. Perhaps some people know there are ~20,000 species of bees in the world, and ~4,000 species in North America, many of which are crop pollinators. Perhaps some people also know that flies can be abundant and effective crop pollinators. And so can beetles and moths and other insects.