Examining the role of shelterbelts (tree plantings) on early-season honey production and hive growth of honeybees in the North Central Region (NCR).

View the project final report

Commodities

• Animals: bees
• Animal Products: honey

Practices

• Crop Production: beekeeping, windbreaks
• Natural Resources/Environment: afforestation, hedges - woody
• Production Systems: agroecosystems

Examining the role of shelterbelts (tree plantings) on early-season honey production and hive growth of honeybees in the North Central Region (NCR). Pollinators, particularly managed honey bees (Apis mellifera), are critical to food production and sustainable agriculture. Annually, $215 billion of global food production is dependent upon honey bee pollination services, indicating the importance of these organisms to global food security.  More specifically, honey production is an important revenue source in many communities across the NCR. Despite this economic and ecological importance, honey bees are under threat from many sources including intensified agricultural practices and continued loss of perennial vegetation. As these threats persist, reductions in the temporal availability of food resources, especially in the early growing season, may be reducing honey bee survivorship and limiting honey production.

Our preliminary observations and communications with beekeepers suggest shelterbelts could provide a crucial food source for bees when other resources are scarce. However, research has not evaluated shelterbelts for pollinator use, particularly in the resource-limited early growing season. We examined the use and effect of shelterbelts on early-season honeybee colony growth in North and South Dakota, the top two honey producing states in the United States.

To address this, we monitored 268 honeybee colonies across 68 apiaries from 2020-2022. We placed scales to monitor hourly weights at two colonies per apiary and pollen traps under two additional colonies per apiary which were used to gather pollen on a weekly basis. Our results suggest that honeybee colony weights did not differ based on the amount of shelterbelt cover within a 1-mile radius of the apiary. Nonetheless, based on honeybee collected pollen, both trees and shrubs were used extensively during the early-season along with many other plants that belonged to 20 different families. The family Oleaceae or the olive family which consists primarily of trees and shrubs including both green ash and lilac made up nearly 50% of honeybee collected pollen during one week in May of 2021 which demonstrates how important pollen from flowering trees and shrubs can be during the early-season.

Honeybees require access to flowering plants to acquire both nectar and pollen which are needed for survival and colony growth. The early season is a time of limited floristic resources for honeybees and our results show that trees and shrubs can help fill the gap. Though our data suggests beekeepers may not see immediate colony growth with associating their colonies with shelterbelts, they will provide their bees with a critical food source during a time when other plants are not readily in bloom. 

 Landowners and managers should consider using a diversity of flowering trees and shrubs during future shelterbelt construction and refurbishing projects given their potential to provide honeybees with forage during the early-season. Likewise, beekeepers can provide forage for their bees by positioning their apiaries within feeding distance of shelterbelts. Future work should evaluate the flowering periods of other trees and shrubs available for use in shelterbelts in an effort to provide a longer period of time each spring when trees and shrubs are flowering and providing resources for honeybees and other pollinators. 

Objective 1 - Quantify honeybee colony weights throughout the early-season (mid-May to early-July) to assess their relationship with trees and shrubs found in shelterbelts.

Objective 2 - Evaluate use of trees and shrubs as forage by honeybees during the early-season using honeybee collected pollen.

Objective 3 - Educate stakeholders about the importance of pollinators including honeybees which are critical to food production in the United States.  

Stakeholders:

• Private landowners interested in pollinators or shelterbelts
• Beekeepers
• Soil Conservation Districts
• United States Department of Agriculture (Farm Service Agency, Natural Resource Conservation Service) 
• Students
• Ag. Educators
• Scientist

Learning outcomes:

• Understand how shelterbelt abundance (Objective 1) and composition (Objective 2) boosts honey production and honey bee colony growth
• Increase awareness about pollinators, their ecology, and how shelterbelt management can improve their health (Objective 3)

Action outcomes:

• Beekeepers will select more productive early-season landscapes and produce a larger honey crop
• SCDs will promote cost-effective flowering trees and shrubs in shelterbelts that benefit pollinators
• Landowners will benefit from greater crop and forage pollination because of future pollinator-friendly shelterbelts