Bee Monitoring at Ramat Hanadiv

Bees are highly important as pollinators of plants in general (about 80% of wild plants are known to be bee-pollinated) and of agricultural crops in particular. While the honey bee is the main pollinator of most agricultural crops, honey bees and wild bees share the pollination of wild plants in open landscapes. Under conditions of dwindling food sources, a high density of honey bees may lead to a lack of nectar and pollen for wild bee species.

The bee most familiar to us is the honey bee. The honey bee has been known in agriculture in our region for thousands of years. Today, it barely survives in nature. The honey bees that we encounter in open landscapes are of agricultural origin. Besides honey bees, there are 20,000 species of wild bees around the world. Israel is considered to be particularly rich in its diversity of bee species, with more than 1,000 known species of wild bees. Most of these wild bee species are solitary species.

Preliminary results

Ramat Hanadiv is characterised by variability in flowering time among the different habitats. In contrast to habitats such as the fuel break zone, in which flowering ends during the second half of March, in other habitats, such as old-fields, flowering continues until May and even early June. Prominent late-flowering plants include Convolvulus species, Daucus species, Ridolfia segetum, Cichorium, and Scolymus maculatus. The variation in flowering period provides diverse centers of activity for winter, spring and summer bee species. The survey revealed that in old-fields, for example, intense, diverse activity of wild bees begins in mid-March. At this time, honey bees are barely active in these areas. A prominent, common, late-spring bee species is Systropha, a bee that specializes in collecting food from species of Convolvulus. A field of Vicia, which was sown in 2020, serves as a large center of activity for thousands of honey bees from beehives located outside Ramat Hanadiv.