Evaluating honey bee foraging behaviour and their impact on pollination success in a mixed almond orchard

Although Apis mellifera is the dominant managed pollinator used to enhance crop production, variation of its foraging behaviour among crop-cultivars not considered as a factor influencing pollination success and, thus, yield. Almond production highly dependent on cross-pollination. Herein, we examined honey bees and pollen limitation in ‘Nonpareil’ ‘Independence’ cultivars. Nectar pollen-foragers differed flower handling behaviour, regardless cultivar. However, most flowers collected morning exhibited less floral constancy this cultivar, potentially promoting Also, supplementation with had positive effect nut-set, suggesting that higher visitation rates are needed increase Our study underlines importance integrating behavioural knowledge pollinators optimize practices pollinator-dependent crops.