Abstract
Habitat loss has reduced the available resources for apiarists and is a key driver of poor colony health, colony loss, and reduced honey yields. The biggest challenge for apiarists in the future will be meeting increasing demands for pollination services, honey, and other bee products with limited resources. Targeted landscape restoration focusing on high-value or high-yielding forage could ensure adequate floral resources are available to sustain the growing industry. Tools are currently needed to evaluate the likely productivity of potential sites for restoration and inform decisions about plant selections and arrangements and hive stocking rates, movements, and placements. We propose a new approach for designing sites for apiculture, centred on a model of honey production that predicts how changes to plant and hive decisions affect the resource supply, potential for bees to collect resources, consumption of resources by the colonies, and subsequently, amount of honey that may be produced. The proposed model is discussed with reference to existing models, and data input requirements are discussed with reference to an Australian case study area. We conclude that no existing model exactly meets the requirements of our proposed approach, but components of several existing models could be combined to achieve these needs.
Highlights
What Is the Problem We Are Trying to Solve?The global honey industry has a current gross value of production (GVP) of more than US$7.3 billion per annum, with the largest producers being China, Turkey, and Ukraine [1]
Records from the last 56 years show honey yields have declined in many regions, including Australia, which is one of the few countries to remain free of Varroa destructor [1,41], perhaps indicating that the capacity of existing resources to sustain the growing honey bee product and pollination industries has already been exceeded
Data inputs on the flowering phenology, nectar production, and pollen production of new plants and existing plants, allow the model to account for the production potential of different species, and helps the user to design plantings that synchronise the resource supply with the colonies’ temporally changing demands
Summary
Cooperative Research Centre for Honey Bee Products, 128 Yanchep Beach Rd, Yanchep, WA 6035, Australia
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