POLLINATORS POLLINATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION

THE ASSESSMENT REPORT ON POLLINATORS, POLLINATION AND FOOD PRODUCTION
was widespread in beekeeping into the 1980s, but the
current trend is toward managed A. mellifera to the loss of
managed A. cerana (Jung and Cho, 2015).
The wisdom of importing A. mellifera into locations where
it is non-native, or even moving it between locations where
it is native, has been called into question for many reasons
(see Chapter 2, Section 2.5). There has consequently been
increasing interest in managing other species for crop
pollination. From a review of the current literature presented
below, it is estimated that approximately 1% of the world’s
20,000 bee species are under consideration and 0.1%
are currently under active management for commercial
pollination. This trend in increasing interest in or use of
other insect species for crop pollination may also have
been driven by perceived or real shortfalls in the pollination
of crops.
FIGURE 3.4
World map showing the annual growth rate (%/yr) in the number of honey bee colonies and honey production for countries reporting
those data to FAO between 1961 and 2012 (FAOSTAT 2013). Data from the countries that were part of the former Soviet Union, the
former Yugoslavia, or the former Czechoslovakia were combined.
A
167
B
No data
Annual growth in number of hives (1961−2012)
−3 −2 −1 0 1 2 3 4 5 10 % per year
3. THE STATUS AND TRENDS IN POLLINATORS
AND POLLINATION
Annual growth in honey production (1961−2012)
No data
−3 −2 −1 0 1 2 3 4 5 10 % per year