Apiculture and forestry (bees and trees)

Honey bees are found associated with forests globally. Flowers of forest trees provide subsistence for honey bees and the trees physically provide shelter for a swarm or bee hive. Forest management and beekeeping have each had a long history both in the United States and globally, but have seldom been integrated or studied in a systematic fashion. Purposeful plantings of trees, as in agroforestry systems, could be designed to favor bee forage or hive protection.Tree growing and beekeeping can easily be combined for several reasons. Both are sustainable on land that is hilly or otherwise less desirable for other agricultural purposes. Both require labor intermittently, and can be sustained while the grower/beekeeper is busy with other farming occupations. Bee hives require very little space, while the bees themselves can forage in a radius of 4 to 5 km. Hives may be located within or near a tree plantation, and utilize both the trees and surrounding other flowering plants for forage. Combining forestry and beekeeping provides annual honey bee products (e.g. honey, beeswax) to supplement income from a landowner's long term forest managements. In areas like Kentucky, where more than half of the forest landowners own 4 ha or less of commercially valuable woodland, it is important to produce economic benefit from those lands without harvesting all the trees. Combining bees and trees is one way of accomplishing this goal. This paper addresses several important known bee-tree interactions which need more systematic study.