Killer Bees Making Super Coffee

inblosam writes "An article at cnn.com describes how a insect-pollinated coffee bean plant actually has an increased yield, by 50 percent or more, when a killer bee does the pollination. The gene mixing allows for better gene selection, making better and bigger beans. Way to go killer bees. If the bees don't kill you, the gallons of coffee may." I guess I don't understand why it matters that it's a killer bee versus a regular bee. Maybe the killer bees travel farther, mixing up the pollen better?

Comments

Yield 50% improved by ANY insect

[Linux_ho]

I guess I don't understand why it matters that it's a killer bee versus a regular bee.

The article sez coffee can self-pollinate, so they didn't think insects were required. Killer bees just happened to be the insects that moved in and started improving the cross-pollination between coffee plants. Any other insect would do just as well, but a headline with "Killer Bees" in the title will grab a lot more attention, as evidenced by the Slashdot link.

CNN

[DustMagnet]

I was quite angry after reading this article on CNN. What's so wrong with journalism that they have to put a fake spin on articles. Some of this comes from the editors who titled the article "Killer Bees Make Killer Coffee". WTF?

The article is about how natural environment make better coffee than monoculture farming. Among many interesting things, they said that killer bees are better than no bees.

I sadly suspect that Slashdot would not have covered this without the killer bee hoopla.

Not an entemologist myself, but I live with one.

[Ashurbanipal]

The real point is that large-scale sexual reproduction (such as that provided by insect pollination)is better for the plants than localized, wind-borne pollination and self-pollination. It doesn't matter what the pollinating insect is, but obviously you're better off with something local that you don't have to spend a lot of time tending.

Self-pollination (such as is prevalent in coffee plants drenched with insecticides) is very nearly cloning. You'll remember that massive cloning of potatoes led to the Irish potato famine? It seems that a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy ad infinitum leads to weak, disease-riddled plants.

Theories abound, including ones that feature interesting catch-phrases like "accumulated viral load", but what everyone agrees is that sexual reproduction has distinct evolutionary advantages, and organisms that use those advantages will often be more robust and "survivable" than those that don't.

Most bees in coffee-growing areas of the world have been "Africanized" - that is, the local wimpy bees have been hybridized with more robust strains of bees originally found only in Africa. So, yes, the so-called "Killer Bees" (any bee can kill you if you are allergic to them, but it's highly unlikely otherwise) are pollinating the coffee.

In short, the type of insects involved are unimportant to the thrust of the article, which is that better coffee comes from sustainable farming practices - and all you have to do is taste a fresh cup of shade-grown fair-trade coffee to learn the truth of that. It's the best by far.