Influence of the location of honeybee colonies on their choice of pollen sources.
Abstract
When about 10% of crops of sweet cherry, kale, field bean and red clover were in flower, colonies were moved to sites either in the crop or at some distance from it. Traps at the entrance to each hive removed about 10% of the pollen loads for analysis.The results showed that even when the flowers of a crop provided plenty of food and did not have to compete strongly with other flower species nearby, the amount of pollen collected from it by a colony still diminshed greatly as the distance of the hive from the crop was increased. It is concluded that growers should take colonies to crops needing pollination and not rely on colonies nearby.J. M. Gedye