The new Ceratina fioreseana bee belongs to a group of important pollinators for plants and crops.
The new bee species was first identified by Favizia Freitas de Oliveira, a research scientist with the Institute of Biology at Brazil’s Federal University of Bahia and Hebert Luiz Pereira, a Bayer consultant whose firm, HP Agroconsultoria focuses on bee production and conservation. In 2017, both began working with Henrique Fiorese, whose family owns the Nossa Senhora Aparecida Farm, where the discovery was made.
Through Bayer’s Forward Farm initiative, the company collaborates with independent farmers like Fiorese in locations throughout the world to share knowledge about modern and sustainable agriculture through first-hand experiences. Pereira and Freitas de Oliveira noticed the new species, which is a solitary bee that does not live in colonies, while studying other bees that were building their nests inside insect hotels that had been installed on the property by Bayer, as well as living in nests located in thick wooded areas within the farm’s nature preserve and its vegetable gardens.
The new Ceratina fioreseana bee is a member of the Ceratina (Ceratinula) subgenus, which occurs with 38 species in the Americas, 15 of which are found in Brazil. As a solitary bee, it lives alone, does not produce honey nor does it have a queen, however it belongs to a group of important pollinators for plants and crops.
“We collected some (female and male) specimens in the field survey,” said Freitas de Oliveira. “In addition to these, we identified 72 other species of native Brazilian bees during a rapid assessment to monitor pollinator diversity around soybean crops.”
“This discovery reinforces the harmonic coexistence between agriculture and the bee population,” said Cláudia Quaglierini, Tropical Intelligence Manager for Bayer. “Through this partnership, we could see that taking good agricultural practices into account, we are able to verify the diversity and productivity of pollinators that have existed on the farm for more than 30 years. In fact, bees can bring better productivity results through pollination.”
