Studying ethology of honey bee towards medicinal plants in the Chaharbagh rangelands

Authors

1 Department of rangeland and watershed management, Faculty of agricultural sciences and natural resources, Gonbad Kavous University

2 Department of rangeland and watershed management, Gonbad Kavous University

3 Natural resources and watershed institute of the Golestan province

4 Department of plan products, Gonbad Kavous University

5 Department of plant prodacts, Gonbad Kavous University

Abstract

The object of this research was to identify the medicinal plants using by honey bee and determining their attractiveness in the rural rangelands of Chaharbagh, Golestan province. For this purpose, to investigate the honey bee behavior towards medicinal plants, 100 1m2 plots were laid out in the 1500 m around bee keeping point. The canopy cover of each plant was recorded and the species composition was calculated. Three criteria consisting of time, the number of bees and distance from bee keeping point were evaluated. Results showed that the most plant families using by honey bees were Asteraceae equal to 21.62%, Lamiaceae equal to 18.92% and Fabaceae equal to 16.22%. Five plant species of Thymus kotchyanus, Teucrium polium, Astragalus gossypinus, Verbascum phlomoides and Cichorium intybus L. were selected as the dominant medicinal plant species in the study area. The most numbers of bees were in the circle of 500 m from bee keeping point and in the morning the most of bees were using medicinal plants. For the total area, the most attractive plant species was Astragalus gossypinusand and then, Thymus kotchyanus, Verbascum phlomoides, Cichorium intybus L.and Teucrium polium were the attractive plants.

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