Pollination service provided by honey bees to buzz-pollinated crops in the Neotropics.

Generalist honey bees grant significant pollination services worldwide. Although honey bees can provide compensatory pollination services, their service to buzz-pollinated crops, compared to specialized pollinators, is not clear. In this study, we assessed the contribution of Africanized honey bees (AHB) and native sonicating bees (NBZ) to the pollination of eggplant (Solanum melongena) and annatto (Bixa orellana) in Yucatan, Mexico, one of the largest producers of these crops in the Americas and a region with one of the largest densities of honey bees in the world.