Meanwhile, wild pollinators are, by most accounts, in the midst of a crisis of their own.
Both new species are deceit pollinators, Vale said, enticing bees to spread their pollen without a reward.
We can't afford to ignore the threat they pose to these crucial pollinators.
Under this last, worst-case scenario, other pollinators would have to be found to perform the work that honeybees now do.
He said pollinators were vital but populations had been declining for 30 years, with the trend set to continue without prompt action.
Other, smaller companies keep tighter tabs on their acolytes (see Cross-Pollinators).
Only a fraction of pollinators are generalists, and even fewer are social.
"All over the city, flowers are now blooming, providing nectar and pollen for all sorts of important bee species and other pollinators, " she said.
Natural Resources Minister Alun Davies said the decline in pollinators "poses a real threat to Wales' wildlife" and could also affect the country's capacity to produce food.
It assessed the possible threats to the pollinators from exposure to residues in pollen and nectar, dust and guttation fluid (some plants exude sap in the form of droplets).
This is useful, she says, for purposes of stabilizing the climate, controlling floods, purifiying drinking water, regulating water flow, supplying bees and other pollinators that supply 20% of our food.
"The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century, " said United Nations Environment Programme executive director Achim Steiner.
Work carried out by the University of Dundee, in Scotland, revealed that if the pesticides were applied directly to the brains of the pollinators, they caused a loss of brain activity.
Vale and his colleagues are studying orchids throughout the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico) to reconstruct their evolutionary history and analyze the effect of pollinators in their development.
Francis Ratnieks, a professor of apiculture at Sussex University who has worked on the state's almond farms, says the crop is so large and intensively grown these days that it has greatly surpassed the region's inherent ability to supply pollinators.
In order to gain a clear insight into the scale of the global problem, the FAO has established the International Pollinators Initiative, which includes a project involving seven nations (India is among them) with the aim of identifying practices and building capacity in the management of pollination services.
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