Murcia, Mar 21 (EFE).- Every year, the flowering of fruit trees becomes a real tourist attraction in Cieza and thousands of people come to see the spectacular view of its pink-tinged fields, but very few pay attention to the protagonists that make it possible for those flowers to become, a few months later, peaches and apricots: the pollinators.
Although the vast majority of the more than 60,000 tourists who pass each year on average through this municipality of 35,000 inhabitants in Vega Alta del Segura, in the Region of Murcia, do not notice them, the presence of bees on the fruit farms Ciezanos is fundamental and essential for these crops.
“It is a story of co-evolution; plants have evolved at the same time as insects: they feed on the nectar of flowers and, when they enter the flower to collect it, they are impregnated with pollen. As they move from one flower to another, they carry that pollen and fertilize the flowers. If a flower is not pollinated, it does not produce a fruit”, summarizes to EFE the professor of Zoology and coordinator of the knowledge transfer group on advances in biodiversity at the University of Murcia, Pilar de la Rúa.
There are many insects that perform this function, but the “pollinator par excellence” in Spain, he explains, is the honey bee, since it is the most numerous of the more than 1,100 species of bees in our country.
“Farmers and beekeepers are inseparable, the former are totally dependent on the latter because, without bees, there would be no crops as we know them, neither for the quantity nor for the quality of the fruits,” says the person in charge of Beekeeping. of the agricultural organization COAG in the Region of Murcia, Carlos Zafra.
For this reason, in stone fruit farms it is common for “pollination services” to be contracted every year: farmers rent hives to place them on their land and for the bees to do their job: carry the pollen from flower to flower.
“Those spectacular fields, which have become a tourist attraction, would be useless without pollinators. And the same thing happens with almond trees, watermelons, melons, cucumbers, cauliflower…”, underlines the agrarian representative.
In the Region of Murcia, there are around 140 professional beekeepers, and seven of them are dedicated exclusively to renting their hives to pollinate different crops, without producing or marketing honey.
One of them is Juan Carlos Miguel, who has some 1,300 hives in the municipality of Alcantarilla, from where he travels throughout the autonomous community and a large part of Spain to promote these pollination tasks.
Depending on the type of crop and its extension, the optimal number of bees is calculated to guarantee good pollination, the places where the hives should be located and the time they remain on the farm.
In the fields of Cieza, where there are some 13,000 hectares cultivated with stone fruit trees, the most common thing is to install about five hives per hectare that remain there while flowering lasts, usually about seven weeks between the months of February and March, although the date The exact times and conditions vary each year, he explains.
It is difficult to give data because, he insists, this process depends on many factors, as usually happens in all natural phenomena.
This year, for example, the months of January and February were especially cold in Vega Alta del Segura, so flowering is beginning to peak now, at the end of March, a somewhat late date for this area.
For this reason, Miguel does not venture to affirm whether it is more profitable to use the hives for pollination or for the production of honey, due to the enormous dependence that both have on climatic circumstances.
He does consider pollination a “safer” source of income because, regardless of the weather, the crops will always need bees: “The field and the bees need each other, they cannot be understood separately,” he summarizes. EFE
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