New Zealand Journal of Botany abstract

Use of native New Zealand plants by honey bees (Apis mellifera L.): a review

VIVIAN M. BUTZ HURYN

Department of Zoology
University of Otago
P.O. Box 56
Dunedin, New Zealand

Abstract  A review of the literature indicated that honey bees collect pollen or nectar from 224 native plant taxa including 188 species, 119 genera, and 67 families in New Zealand. However, only 12 families contain the majority of honey bee forage sources. Plant taxa providing surplus quantities of honey and taxa with most citations were used to indicate intensity of honey bee use and revealed that only a very small proportion is used intensively. Potential effects on animal species overlapping in resource use with honey bees in the few specialised plant-pollinator relationships in New Zealand are discussed as well as potential impacts on the native flora. Forage sources used by honey bees are compared with those plants known or suspected to be threatened or rare.

Keywords  Apis mellifera; New Zealand flora; nectar; pollen; surplus honey; threatened flora; pollinators; specialisation

New Zealand Journal of Botany, 1995, Vol. 33: 497-512

0028-825X/95/3304-497 $2.50/0 (c) The Royal Society of New Zealand 1995

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (752K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

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