Abstract
Abstract Intensive farming systems have led to reduced food availability for honey bees which could be related to their current decline. A global tool is needed in order to assess the melliferous potential of plant species that could be developed as crops or companion plants in such systems. This review is based upon a survey from an extensive dataset collected in Romania over the last sixty years to record the nectar production of 153 weedy species. While there was considerable variation among these plants, we found that the melliferous potential of such large families as the Brassicaceae was low, that of the Apiaceae, Asteraceae and Fabaceae at an intermediate level, and that of the Lamiaceae and Boraginaceae the highest. High nectariferous potential was found to be an important feature of perennial ruderal species. Within the main flowering season, perennials provided much more nectar than annuals. These results could help to develop new agricultural practices more compatible with honey bee colony survival and honey production, as some of these plant species could provide a solution to enable agriculture and beekeeping to coexist in a sustainable way.
Highlights
A large part of the European honey harvest is derived from the mass flowering of herbaceous crops such as oilseed rape (Brassica napus), sunflower (Helianthus annuus), lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) and coriander (Coriandrum sativum)
The calculation of the melliferous potential for each botanical species was based on three parameters monitored at the same sampling site: 1) the average sugar mass produced by individual flowers during anthesis; 2) the duration of anthesis, that is the period during which the flowers remained open and foraged; and 3) the flower density, that is the number of open flowers per unit area of land cover
Our values of melliferous potentials were obtained in southern Romania under natural conditions but vary depending on the environmental and meteorological context
Summary
A large part of the European honey harvest is derived from the mass flowering of herbaceous crops such as oilseed rape (Brassica napus), sunflower (Helianthus annuus), lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) and coriander (Coriandrum sativum). The discontinuous flowering of such crops over the season may result in an inhospitable environment for honey bees in between short periods of abundant resources (Williams, 2002; Decourtye et al, 2011; Requier et al, 2015). Intensive farming leads to overall low nectar collection over the season with a concomitant reduced honey production and slow development of honey bee colonies, making them more susceptible to stressors (Holzschuh et al, 2007; Bretagnolle & Gaba, 2015; Alaux et al, 2017). Some are melliferous plants that provide an essential component of the food resource for honey bees at the landscape scale (Bretagnolle & Gaba, 2015; Requier et al, 2015). This review will address only floral nectar secretion. This nectar secretion, both from a quantitative and a qualitative standpoint, is driven by environmental and genetic factors
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