FORAGING BEHAVIOR OF APIS MELLIFERA L. ON MALE-STERILE AND MALE-FERTILE INBRED LINES OF CARROT (DAUCUS CAROTA L.) IN GRIDDED ENCLOSURES.

The distance between rows of male-fertile and male-sterile plants (0.9m to 2.4m) was the main factor affecting the pollination of the carrot lines as shown by differences in seed yields, and indeed, this was linked to the foraging behavior of the pollinators. Bees exhibit the following harvesting strategy: (1) They tend to visit all the flowers in the plot, without any previous choice among the lines. (2) Marked individual bees show a consistent preference for a narrow foraging area (a few m²) up to a fortnight. (3) The mean pollen loads carried by the bees in their hair coat were characteristic for each foraging behavior and the flower type visited at the time of their capture.

From these results, we devised a new pollination strategy to improve seed production which is currently under investigation. Still using honey bees as the pollinator, the new approach has a reduced mean planting distance between male-sterile and male-fertile sets and uses a checker-board pattern.

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