Hungarian Agricultural Research, 2001 (X/1-4)
2001-03-01 / 1. szám
2 I News & Events • News & Events • News & Events • News & Events • News & Events 8th International Pollination Symposium: a world conference on pollination ecology at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of West Hungary, Mosonmagyaróvár, 10-14 July 2000 The 8th International Pollination Symposium was organised and hosted by the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of West- Hungary, Mosonmagyaróvár, between 10—14 July 2000. This was a great honour to Hungary because it has been a sign of recognition of the pollination research being made in this country. The Symposium was the 8th world conference on pollination ecology as a part of a series of international symposia held first in Copenhagen, Denmark (1960), thereafter in London, UK (1964), Prague, Czechoslovakia (1974), University of Maryland, USA (1978), Versailles, France (1983), Tilburg, The Netherlands (1990), and Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada (1996). The 8th meeting was organised under the auspices of the International Commission of Plant Bee Relationships (ICPBR), a scientific member of the International Union for biological Sciences and it was a great pleasure that the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS) also accepted the Symposium as its official scientific meeting. The international recognition of the insect pollination research in Hungary, however, goes back over a long period, since it was initiated with studies on the pollinating wild bees of Lucerne when Z. Bojtos, a plant breeder, encouraged an entomologist, L. Móczár, to study the problem in the mid-fifties. The specific structure and the density of Lucerne pollinating wild bees as well as their flower visiting and tipping speed on Lucerne were discovered. This research was continued and developed in Hungary by P. Benedek in the late sixties who discovered that there were some typical flight period patterns among wild bees and each of them represented a separate group of species having been adapted to different sections of the seasonal successions of the blooming flora. He also discovered the relationship of wild bees to Lucerne and other available pollen sources. The effect of different environmental conditions on the density and the specific structure of wild bee populations in Lucerne fields was also studied in detail and the long term impact of a changing agriculture on the specific structure and the density of wild bees pollinating Lucerne was also recognised. Later on he also studied the pollinating wild bees of cultivated vetches as well as of red clover. In the early seventies bee pollination studies of P. Benedek and his research team were extended to other field crops also, including winter rape, sunflower and seed onion, and also some studies were made with some fruit tree species and small fmits. As a result of these studies a book was written on the “Pollination of Crops by Honeybees” (Megporzás mézelő méhekkel, 1974, authors: Benedek - Manninger - Virányi) as a synthesis of the world literature and the results of the research made in Hungary. Trials were made to solve the propagation of the Lucerne leaf cutting bee in Hungary by S. Manninger in the seventies and also the nest parasites of this wild bee species were investigated in Hungary. Intensive research on the bee pollination of fruit crops was initiated by P. Benedek, J. Nyéki and M. Sotész in the late seventies. They established a fruit tree polli- Continued on page 22. Figure 1. Opening address to the Symposium by Dr. Károly Tamás undersecretary of state, on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Hungarian Agricultural Research 2001/1