Hello,
Once again I would like to ask for advice and information concerning my
research. Some details first:
I'm a PhD student in Israel. My research is about melon (cantaloupe,
muskmelon) pollination in greenhouses in a desert area. The time of year
is winter, the farmers are planting the melons early in december and
flowering begins in January. Beehives are brought from the center of
Israel, about 4-5 hours drive north. The greenhouses are a kind of a
passable-tunnel, about 3 m high and 5 to 7 m wide. In each tunnel there
are 3, 4 or up to 7 beds with plants. In the past two years the majority
of the farmers were binding the plants upwards, into a vine shaped plant
climbing up. This way the plants are stronger and the fruit are better
and larger. Also, the number of plants in each frame (greenhouse) can be
doubled so that the average number of flowers is twice as much as when
the plants are lying on the ground.
Now I would like to present you with some of the problems the farmers and
I have during the pollination season.
  1) How many hives (average winter hives) would you place for each such
frame (I forgot to mention that, but each frame if about 0.5 dunams to ca.
1 dunam), to obtain a satisfactory pollination?
 
  2) How far, or how near would you place the hive in order to get the
best results. The thing is that these greenhouses are placed in the
desert and the wearther this time of year could be tricky: night
temperatures are pretty low and then when the sun shines they go up very
rapidly. Some of the farmers I talked to suggested placing the hives just
adjacent to the frames, so that in the morning heat would warm up the
hive and the bees would leave it earlier to visit the flowers. any ideas?
 
  3) The number of flowers in each frame and the quantity of nectar (main
reason for bee visits) are very small, when compared to warmer periods.
That means to me that the bees don't have enough food in one frame and
therefore the bees must get extra feeding to the hive (sugar, pollen
subs). Why not cut the number of hives? That is would the hives be just
as effective (maybe more effective) when less of them are placed there?
 
  4) I estimate bee activity by checking the number of pollen grains on
the stigma and by counting bees visiting the flowers. Any other
effiecient estimates?
 
  5) Bees are visiting patches of flowers, near and far from the hive.
Bees form groups of workers that fly to these different distances and
therefore one can say that each hive has in it a few groups. If that is
so, than in any case just a certain group in the hives placed near melon
greenhouses would visit melon flowers, whereas the other would search for
other sources for necter and pollen.  Does anyone have any papers on that
subject or know of any? Do you have any experiments and results on that
matter?
 
Please send any ideas or literature you know of to my internet address:
 
                               [log in to unmask]
or the my university address:  Rivka Nokrian, Botany Department,
The George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel-Aviv University,
Ramat Aviv, 69978 Tel-Aviv, ISRAEL.
 
Thank you all, Rivka.