Abstract Animal-mediated pollination is an essential ecosystem service on which over a third of the world's agricultural crops depend. Blueberry fruit production is highly dependent on animal pollination and although visited by a range of bee species in their native range and agricultural settings, bumble bees are thought to be their primary native pollinators. Demand for blueberries has increased in recent years due to their perceived health benefits. Consequently, blueberry cultivation has expanded well beyond their native and original agricultural range, including several regions where bumble bees are not present. In South Africa, like many areas in the world, honey bees are the only commercially available pollinators for blueberries because many countries ban the importation of bumble bees. This study aimed to determine the benefits of honey bee pollination on blueberry fruit yield for the variety Ventura by comparing yields of honey bee-pollinated flowers to flowers where pollinators were excluded. Our results show that honey bees significantly increased berry mass and diameter. We conclude that Ventura in South Africa can be pollinated by honey bees, and that honey bee pollination can be an effective substitute for bumble bees in areas where bumble bees are unavailable. We also determined the extent to which blueberry yields could be improved by comparing fruit yield under honey bee pollination to fruit yield achieved through hand pollination. We found that honey bee pollinated blueberry yields were lower than yields achieved through hand pollination, suggesting that there is potentially room to improve honey bee pollination. Furthermore, we offer a conceptual figure to demonstrate how yield obtained through pollinator exclusion, open pollination, and hand pollination relate to each other. Additional research is required to study how beneficial honey bees are to fruit yield on other blueberry varieties as the benefits of honey bees are likely to vary depending on the variety.

中文翻译：

---

蜜蜂是南非蓝莓的重要传粉者，尽管它们无法进行声波处理

摘要 动物介导的授粉是一种必不可少的生态系统服务，世界上超过三分之一的农作物都依赖于它。蓝莓果实的生产高度依赖于动物授粉，虽然在其原生范围和农业环境中被一系列蜜蜂物种访问，但熊蜂被认为是它们的主要本土传粉者。近年来，由于人们认为蓝莓对健康有益，对蓝莓的需求有所增加。因此，蓝莓种植已经远远超出了它们的原生和原始农业范围，包括一些没有大黄蜂的地区。在南非，与世界上的许多地区一样，蜜蜂是蓝莓唯一的市售传粉媒介，因为许多国家/地区禁止进口熊蜂。本研究旨在通过比较蜜蜂授粉的花朵与排除传粉媒介的花朵的产量，确定蜜蜂授粉对文图拉品种蓝莓果实产量的益处。我们的结果表明，蜜蜂显着增加了浆果的质量和直径。我们得出的结论是，南非的文图拉可以通过蜜蜂授粉，而在没有熊蜂的地区，蜜蜂授粉可以有效地替代熊蜂。我们还通过比较蜜蜂授粉的果实产量与人工授粉的果实产量来确定蓝莓产量的提高程度。我们发现蜜蜂授粉的蓝莓产量低于通过人工授粉实现的产量，这表明蜜蜂授粉仍有改进的空间。此外，我们提供了一个概念图来展示通过排除传粉媒介、开放授粉和人工授粉获得的产量如何相互关联。需要额外的研究来研究蜜蜂对其他蓝莓品种的果实产量有何益处，因为蜜蜂的益处可能因品种而异。