Sequencing the Movements of Honey Bee Colonies between the Forage Sites with the Microeconomic Model of the Migratory Beekeeper

A beekeeper who moves his honeybee colonies from one forage site to another during the productive season does not passively follow a prefixed sequence, but must create one by comparing a wide range of forage sites. How can migratory beekeeper sequence the movements of his honeybee colonies from one forage site to another? The microeconomic model formalized in Section 3 offers a solution to this question. The model assumes that the migratory beekeeper is following, in conditions of certainty, a profitability target under the constraint that the time taken up by each sequence of sites is less than or equal to the duration of the honeybee colonies’ annual biological cycle. Each forage site that the honeybee colonies visit contributes not just to the profitability but also to the sustainability of the sequence to which it belongs. Replacing one or more forage sites within a sequence therefore simultaneously affects the levels of profitability and sustainability. In Section 4, the sustainability of the sequence will be explained in terms of the characteristics of the sites, their agro-environmental context, the honey bee well-being and the timing and duration of the placement period of the honeybee colonies on the site

Commercial Pollination of Apple Orchards: Val di Non Case Study

This chapter presents the results of a survey conducted in spring 2019 within the beekeepers who rent their colonies for the pollination of apple orchards in Val di Non, an alpine area in North Italy. The commercial pollination of apple orchards in this area is managed in an associated form by their cooperatives. The survey, carried out in collaboration with the local farmer cooperatives, submitted to the beekeepers a questionnaire containing questions on the economic and apidological aspects of their migratory beekeeping. The answers, referring to 43 questionnaires, show that beekeepers mostly: plan the migration itinerary at the beginning of the year; proceed to balance the colonies of honey bees before the pollination of the apple orchards; believe that the strength of the colonies must affect the pollination fee paid by the farmers and that the concentration of the colonies for the pollination of crops is not a relevant factor in the spread of bee diseases. The winter losses of honey bee colonies suffered by the responding beekeepers are on average 11.9%. The average cost of feeding the honey bee colony amounts to 19.1 €/colony. Finally, there is a wide interest in beekeepers to ensure the honey bee colonies

Congiunzione nei fattori e congiunzione sequenziale nei siti foraggeri

The migratory beekeeper follows the seasonal progression of flowering, moving bee colonies from one forage site to another. Migratory management of bee colonies offers the possibility of integrating two sources of income: the provision of commercial pollination services and the production of honey. There are numerous forage areas suitable for accommodating the bee colonies at each stage of migration, differing according to the location and the type of plants which cover them. The beekeeper therefore needs to address and resolve the problem of locating a sequence of forage sites to be followed throughout the migration. Given the seasonability of the crops produced on the forage areas, the analysis on the jointness in input may be carried out on two levels. On the first level, it is considered the single forage area, on the second level the sequence of forage areas

Contratto d'area cooperativo contro il rischio sistemico di produzione in agricoltura

Farms that deliver production to processing, storage and marketing cooperatives are doubly exposed to the economic risk deriving from climatic and environmental adversities: besides the direct loss due to reduced output, with unfavourable climatic conditions they also suffer an indirect loss due to the effect on the price of the lower quantity processed by the cooperative. When farm production falls short of the processing capacity of the cooperative, in fact, there occurs an increase in the average fixed operating cost and, ceteris paribus, a reduction in the price paid to the members. However, cooperatives for the processing, storage and marketing of agricultural products may also perform an active role in mitigating the members’ production risk. By means of the area yield insurance contract, cooperatives are able to mitigate the systemic component of their members’ production risk, thereby increasing efficiency. The aim of this paper is to set out the model of the area yield insurance contract and to explain the possible contribution of the processing, storage and marketing cooperative to removing information asymmetry. Cooperatives usually comprise a great deal of information about the members’ production: quantities produced, crop areas and varieties cultivated, production quality, price levels. This valuable stock of information relative to the productions of the members over the years can be managed by the cooperative without significant transaction costs in order to remedy certain weaknesses in the area crop insurance contract. When processing, storage and marketing cooperatives form a territorial system, the area yield insurance contract can be enhanced with a two-stage specification so as to benefit from both the information possessed by the cooperatives and from the organizational role of the consortium

Sequential Relationship between Profitability and Sustainability: The Case of Migratory Beekeeping

When beekeeping is managed on a migratory basis, the bee colony produces physical outputs (honey) and pollination services on a sequence of forage sites. Forage sites are competitors if their flowering periods overlap, and are complementary otherwise. Viable sequences consist only of complementary forage sites. A part of the bee colony’s production time is spent on each forage site in the period when the crop or wild vegetation covering it is in flower. The total period covered by the sequence of sites, including the base site, must be equal to or less than the duration (365 days) of the bee colony’s annual biological cycle. The migratory beekeeper draws up viable sequences of forage sites and calculates their profitability levels. Variations in the profitability of forage sites which alter the composition of the sequence, affecting provision of the non-marketed ecosystem pollination services, impact the biodiversity of the pollinated plants with trickle-down effects on sustainability. In the case of migratory beekeeping, there is, therefore, a sequential relationship between profitability and sustainability

Sequential Relationship between Profitability and Sustainability: The Case of Migratory Beekeeping

When beekeeping is managed on a migratory basis, the bee colony produces physical outputs (honey) and pollination services on a sequence of forage sites. Forage sites are competitors if their flowering periods overlap, and are complementary otherwise. Viable sequences consist only of complementary forage sites. A part of the bee colony’s production time is spent on each forage site in the period when the crop or wild vegetation covering it is in flower. The total period covered by the sequence of sites, including the base site, must be equal to or less than the duration (365 days) of the bee colony’s annual biological cycle. The migratory beekeeper draws up viable sequences of forage sites and calculates their profitability levels. Variations in the profitability of forage sites which alter the composition of the sequence, affecting provision of the non-marketed ecosystem pollination services, impact the biodiversity of the pollinated plants with trickle-down effects on sustainability. In the case of migratory beekeeping, there is, therefore, a sequential relationship between profitability and sustainability

Modeling sequential production: The migratory beekeeper case

This paper formalizes a bio-economic model of migratory beekeeping activities, during the annual production cycle, so as to discern the optimal sequence of foraging sites for migratory beekeepers; it then proceeds to empirically verify the model via a case study. The model assumes that the apiary farm produces three marketable outputs under conditions of certainty with disjunctive resources at the sites. In particular, honey, commercial pollination services and nucleus colonies are produced sequentially at foraging sites throughout the year. The model determines a migratory beekeeperâs revenues, variable costs, gross income from each sequence of foraging sites under the constraint that the total time allocated to the foraging sites be less than or equal to the annual production cycle duration. The bio-economic model allows sequential choices and jointness in foraging sites to be tested, so as to ascertain whether the various stages in the sequential production process are independent of each other. Jointness in foraging sites can arise with regard to variable costs, revenues or both simultaneously

Fondi di stabilizzazione del reddito: un caso pratico

L\u2019Ist, cio\ue8 lo strumento per la stabilizzazione dei redditi, ha come fi ne quello di compensare i produttori agricoli che subiscono una consistente perdita di reddito. In Italia la prima realt\ue0 ad averlo applicato \ue8 il Consorzio di difesa dei produttori agricoli per le aziende trentine che producono ciliegie e piccoli frutt