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Do extra flowers steal bees from strawberries?
Quick find: this post is based on the published summary (abstract) of the study, not the full paper.
Researchers from Western Sydney University's Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment grew strawberries in glasshouse chambers with and without other flowering plants, pollinated by managed stingless bees. Where other flowers were growing, the bees still visited strawberry flowers more often than in the strawberry-only chambers, and every hive kept or gained weight.
Protected cropping helps a crop grow and makes pests easier to control, but it can make pollination harder, and the managed bees brought in to do the job may suffer from an unnaturally narrow diet. Growing other flowering plants alongside the crop is one answer, with a catch: those flowers may compete for the bees and leave the crop less well pollinated. This team set out to test that trade-off with glasshouse strawberries (Sheoran et al., 2026).
What this means for your grow
If you rely on managed bees to pollinate strawberries under glass, this study suggests other flowering plants grown alongside need not pull the bees away from the crop. In this glasshouse, the bees still favoured the strawberry flowers, and the bees and the fruit both did better with the extra flowers present. The published abstract does not name the flowering plants or the bee species, so it does not yet tell you what to plant.
What did they test and find?
- The set-up: glasshouse strawberries pollinated by managed stingless bees, in chambers with co-flowering plants and in chambers without them (the monoculture, or control, treatment).
- What they measured: bee activity, hive weight, how often the bees visited flowers, and strawberry production.
- The bees still chose strawberries. In the co-flowering chambers, bees made approximately 1.5 times more visits to strawberry flowers than to the co-flowering species.
- The crop was not short-changed. Bees in the co-flowering chambers visited strawberry flowers more often than bees in the monoculture chambers.
- Better fruit. The authors say this resulted in higher quality strawberries with more fertilised achenes.
- Healthier hives. Hive weight and bee activity were significantly higher in the co-flowering treatment. All the hives there maintained or gained weight, while the control hives all lost weight.
What could it mean?
The authors say their study provides a rare example of clear synergy between managing for bee health and crop pollination, leading to a “win-win” in glasshouse systems. For now it is a result for glasshouse growers who use managed bees, and for pollination researchers. With no plant list or planting details in the abstract, it is not yet something to copy at home.
What were the limitations?
Limitations are not reported in the published abstract.
Trial details
- Who: Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment and School of Science, Western Sydney University, Penrith, Australia, and Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, India (the authors' affiliations).
- Where: chambers in a glasshouse. The published abstract does not say where the glasshouse was.
- Crop: strawberries.
- Pollinators: managed stingless bees, kept in hives.
- Design: chambers with co-flowering plants compared with monoculture (control) chambers of strawberries alone.
- Measured: bee activity, hive weight, flower visitation and strawberry production.
- Results: in co-flowering chambers, approximately 1.5 times more bee visits to strawberry flowers than to co-flowering species; more visits to strawberry flowers than in the monoculture treatment; higher quality strawberries with more fertilised achenes; hive weight and bee activity significantly higher in the co-flowering treatment, where all hives maintained or gained weight, while control hives all lost weight.
- Publication: Journal of Sustainable Agriculture and Environment 5(3), e70198 (Wiley), published 3 August 2026, https://doi.org/10.1002/sae2.70198. Licence: CC BY 4.0.
- Not reported in the published abstract: where the glasshouse was; the strawberry cultivar; the bee species; which co-flowering plants were grown; the number of chambers, hives and plants, and the replication; the dates and duration; the growing system and substrate; lighting; temperature, humidity and CO2; nutrition; the size of the differences in visits, fruit quality and hive weight, and the statistics behind them; funding and conflicts of interest.
Links
- The study: Co-Flowering Plant Species in a Glasshouse Boost Both Strawberry Production and Bee Health
- The institution: Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University
References
- Sheoran, S., Power, S. A., Gilpin, A.-M., Yadav, S., & Cook, J. M. (2026). Co-flowering plant species in a glasshouse boost both strawberry production and bee health. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture and Environment, 5(3), e70198. https://doi.org/10.1002/sae2.70198