Understanding The Benefits Of The Symbiotic Relation Between Honey Bee Hives & Solar Farms

We all are aware that thousands of honey bees are working hard every day and are responsible for providing raw honey & boosting agricultural production. But did you ever come across a study that shows a symbiotic relationship between solar farms and honeybee hives? This information sounds exciting, right? To gain more insight about this new study, read on the blog below –

Honey bees are essential pollinators, as they are responsible for pollinating around 70% of the natural products, vegetables and nuts we people devour day by day. Unfortunately, though, since the mid-2000s, a species-threatening "Colony Collapse Disorder" has seen commercial honey bee populaces demolished.

Therefore, logical analysts have been exploring novel land management practices, and probably the most encouraging include the advantageous connection between agribusiness and PV. One such research, published in the journal Biological Conservation, inspected the monetary advantages of beehive integration with solar farms.

Enter Agrivoltaics –

The cooperative advantages of agrivoltaics are progressively documented. Many have proposed consolidating honey bee hives on solar parks as a harmonious twofold answer for the issues of honey bee populaces and extended sustainable power limit.

In the United Kingdom (UK) scientists from the colleges of Lancaster and Reading have published an investigation discovering that UK farming and production of natural honey, honeycomb, and other bee products could be boosted by a great many pounds every year if honey bee hives were incorporated on solar parks throughout the country.

It was suggested that wild pollinators should be prioritized over honeybees and were appropriate for the management of solar farms. Solar farms are fundamental for energy change and natural maintainability. Yet, they do involve enormous plots of land and ought to, in this manner, bring added ecological and business benefits where possible.

Managing solar parks for honey bees can decidedly affect crop yields and thus financial returns. However, it is vital to consider the appropriateness on a site-by-site basis given the potential ramifications for wild pollinators and the advantages of managing sites for biodiversity all the more broadly.

Solar P-Bee -

There are solar farms that, as of now, have honey bees working diligently. Nonetheless, the financial advantages of this harmonious relationship hadn't been evaluated until this UK study. Mindful of the cost of installing and dealing with the colonies of bees, the exploration group detailed land cover guides. This was done to compare crop distributions with solar park locations, just as existing honey bee hive data, fertilization prerequisites and yield values to discover that deployment of honey bees on solar parks might have raised harvest yields by £5.9 million out of 2017 alone.

England was the country that would benefit the most from bumble bee hive integration, essentially because that oilseed is so broadly cropped. However, the analysts likewise checked out harvests of field beans, linseed, pears, apples, strawberries, blackcurrants and raspberries, and observed that the delicate organic products like berries would benefit the most on a per capita basis.

Eventually, and it is; obviously theoretical (yet an informative one), the report tracked down that if all UK crops were developed inside a 1.5km range of a honey bee hive-housed solar park, the worth of those harvest yields could increase by £80 million every year.

According to Mr. Basem Barry, founder & CEO of Geohoney, this study exhibits how multi-disciplinary examination can observe novel land management practices, which can at the same time advantage farmers, beekeepers, energy producers and customers. Sun parks are assuming an inexorably significant part in the national shift towards carbon zero as their commitment to electricity generation rises.

However, sun parks take up a great deal of land, and as more parks are made to fulfill clean energy needs, it is essential to look at how they can be accustomed to achieving other natural or commercial benefits.