Mayack C, Carlson M, Niño BD, Niño EL, Seshadri A. Impacts of almond pollination service and inter-row cover cropping on honey bee colony strength and performance.
THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2025;
983:179703. [PMID:
40398168 DOI:
10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.179703]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2025] [Revised: 05/15/2025] [Accepted: 05/16/2025] [Indexed: 05/23/2025]
Abstract
Intensive agriculture has become necessary to meet the growing global demand for food and in some crops, successful fruit and seed production involves the activity of insect pollinators. Among insects, honey bees are one of the most efficient pollinators and in the agriculture industry, worth over 200 billion dollars annually, economic yield of some commodity crops, such as almonds, are heavily reliant upon pollination by honey bees. Almonds are a quintessential example of the commercial application of plant-pollinator dependency. Acreages of almonds mostly comprise of self-incompatible varieties that need bees for transferring pollen from the flowers of 'pollenizer' varieties to those of nut-yielding varieties, facilitating cross-pollination. Early season flowering phenology of almonds, when there are very few other plants in bloom, facilitates honey bee colony growth after the overwintering quiescence. Here, (i) we assessed colony strength and performance before and after almond pollination service and (ii) the impacts of availability of flowering interrow mustard-mix cover crops. Results show that there were consistently more frames of bees, pollen stores, brood, and adult bees in colonies returning from almond pollination service. The availability of mustard-mix cover crops supports increased colony strength through the season, facilitating long lasting positive impacts on honey bee health. Our findings suggest that agroecosystem management practices such as interrow cover cropping, strengthen the immediate and long-term positive impacts from pollination services by improving honey bee colony performance while simultaneously promoting ecosystem function.
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