Memory-guided foraging and landscape design interact to determine ecosystem services.

Many studies examine how the landscape affects memory-informed movement patterns, but very few examine how memory-informed foragers influence the landscape. This reverse relationship is an important factor in preventing the continued decline of many ecosystem services. We investigate this question in the context of crop pollination services by wild bees, a critical ecosystem service that is in steep decline. Many studies suggest that adding wild flower patches near crops can result in higher crop pollination services, but specific advice pertaining to the optimal location and density of these wild flower patches is lacking, as well as any estimate of the expected change in crop pollination services. In this work, we seek to understand what is the optimal placement of a flower patch relative to a single crop field, during crop bloom and considering spatial factors alone. We develop an individual based model of memory-based foraging by bumble bees to simulate bee movement from a single nest while the crop is in bloom, and measure the resulting crop pollination services. We consider a single crop field enhanced with a wild flower patch in a variable location, and measure crop flower visitation over the course of a single day. We analyze the pollination intensity and spatial distribution of flower visits to determine optimal wild flower patch placement for an isolated crop field. We find that the spatial arrangement of crop and wild flower patch have a significant effect on the number of crop flower visits, and that these effects arise from the memory-informed foraging pattern. The most effective planting locations are either in the centre of the crop field or on the far side of the crop field, away from the single bumble bee nest.

Differential equation model for central-place foragers with memory: implications for bumble bee crop pollination.

Bumble bees provide valuable pollination services to crops around the world. However, their populations are declining in intensively farmed landscapes. Understanding the dispersal behaviour of these bees is a key step in determining how agricultural landscapes can best be enhanced for bumble bee survival. Here we develop a partial integro-differential equation model to predict the spatial distribution of foraging bumble bees in dynamic heterogeneous landscapes. In our model, the foraging population is divided into two subpopulations, one engaged in an intensive search mode (modeled by diffusion) and the other engaged in an extensive search mode (modeled by advection). Our model considers the effects of resource-dependent switching rates between movement modes, resource depletion, central-place foraging behaviour, and memory. We use our model to investigate how crop pollination services are affected by wildflower enhancements. We find that planting wildflowers such that the crop is located in between the wildflowers and the nest site can benefit crop pollination in two different scenarios. If the bees do not have a strong preference for wildflowers, a small or low density wildflower patch is beneficial. If, on the other hand, the bees strongly prefer the wildflowers, then a large or high density wildflower patch is beneficial. The increase of the crop pollination services in the later scenario is of remarkable magnitude.

High-severity wildfire limits available floral pollen quality and bumble bee nutrition compared to mixed-severity burns.

High-severity wildfires, which can homogenize floral communities, are becoming more common relative to historic mixed-severity fire regimes in the Northern Rockies of the U.S. High-severity wildfire could negatively affect bumble bees, which are typically diet generalists, if floral species of inadequate pollen quality dominate the landscape post-burn. High-severity wildfires often require more time to return to pre-burn vegetation composition, and thus, effects of high-severity burns may persist past initial impacts. We investigated how wildfire severity (mixed- vs. high-severity) and time-since-burn affected available floral pollen quality, corbicular pollen quality, and bumble bee nutrition using percent nitrogen as a proxy for pollen quality and bumble bee nutrition. We found that community-weighted mean floral pollen nitrogen, corbicular pollen nitrogen, and bumble bee nitrogen were greater on average by 0.82%N, 0.60%N, and 1.16%N, respectively, in mixed-severity burns. This pattern of enhanced floral pollen nitrogen in mixed-severity burns was likely driven by the floral community, as community-weighted mean floral pollen percent nitrogen explained 87.4% of deviance in floral community composition. Only bee percent nitrogen varied with time-since-burn, increasing by 0.33%N per year. If these patterns persist across systems, our findings suggest that although wildfire is an essential ecosystem process, there are negative early successional impacts of high-severity wildfires on bumble bees and potentially on other pollen-dependent organisms via reductions in available pollen quality and nutrition. This work examines a previously unexplored pathway for how disturbances can influence native bee success via altering the nutritional landscape of pollen.

Non-native honey bees disproportionately dominate the most abundant floral resources in a biodiversity hotspot.

Most plant-pollinator mutualisms are generalized. As such, they are susceptible to perturbation by abundant, generalist, non-native pollinators such as the western honey bee ( Apis mellifera), which can reach high abundances and visit flowers of many plant species in their expansive introduced range. Despite the prevalence of non-native honey bees, their effects on pollination mutualisms in natural ecosystems remain incompletely understood. Here, we contrast community-level patterns of floral visitation by honey bees with that of the diverse native pollinator fauna of southern California, USA. We show that the number of honey bees visiting plant species increases much more rapidly with flower abundance than does that of non-honey bee insects, such that the percentage of all visitors represented by honey bees increases with flower abundance. Thus, honey bees could disproportionately impact the most abundantly blooming plant species and the large numbers of both specialized and generalized pollinator species that they sustain. Honey bees may preferentially exploit high-abundance floral resources because of their ability to recruit nest-mates; these foraging patterns may cause native insect species to forage on lower-abundance resources to avoid competition. Our results illustrate the importance of understanding foraging patterns of introduced pollinators in order to reveal their ecological impacts.

Global agricultural productivity is threatened by increasing pollinator dependence without a parallel increase in crop diversification.

The global increase in the proportion of land cultivated with pollinator-dependent crops implies increased reliance on pollination services. Yet agricultural practices themselves can profoundly affect pollinator supply and pollination. Extensive monocultures are associated with a limited pollinator supply and reduced pollination, whereas agricultural diversification can enhance both. Therefore, areas where agricultural diversity has increased, or at least been maintained, may better sustain high and more stable productivity of pollinator-dependent crops. Given that >80% of all crops depend, to varying extents, on insect pollination, a global increase in agricultural pollinator dependence over recent decades might have led to a concomitant increase in agricultural diversification. We evaluated whether an increase in the area of pollinator-dependent crops has indeed been associated with an increase in agricultural diversity, measured here as crop diversity, at the global, regional, and country scales for the period 1961-2016. Globally, results show a relatively weak and decelerating rise in agricultural diversity over time that was largely decoupled from the strong and continually increasing trend in agricultural dependency on pollinators. At regional and country levels, there was no consistent relationship between temporal changes in pollinator dependence and crop diversification. Instead, our results show heterogeneous responses in which increasing pollinator dependence for some countries and regions has been associated with either an increase or a decrease in agricultural diversity. Particularly worrisome is a rapid expansion of pollinator-dependent oilseed crops in several countries of the Americas and Asia that has resulted in a decrease in agricultural diversity. In these regions, reliance on pollinators is increasing, yet agricultural practices that undermine pollination services are expanding. Our analysis has thereby identified world regions of particular concern where environmentally damaging practices associated with large-scale, industrial agriculture threaten key ecosystem services that underlie productivity, in addition to other benefits provided by biodiversity.

Direct and indirect effects of episodic frost on plant growth and reproduction in subalpine wildflowers.

Frost is an important episodic event that damages plant tissues through the formation of ice crystals at or below freezing temperatures. In montane regions, where climate change is expected to cause earlier snow melt but may not change the last frost-free day of the year, plants that bud earlier might be directly impacted by frost through damage to flower buds and reproductive structures. However, the indirect effects of frost mediated through changes in plant-pollinator interactions have rarely been explored. We examined the direct and pollinator-mediated indirect effects of frost on three wildflower species in southwestern Colorado, USA, Delphinium barbeyi (Ranunculaceae), Erigeron speciosus (Asteraceae), and Polemonium foliosissimum (Polemoniaceae), by simulating moderate (-1 to -5°C) frost events in early spring in plants in situ. Subsequently, we measured plant growth, and upon flowering measured flower morphology and phenology. Throughout the flowering season, we monitored pollinator visitation and collected seeds to measure plant reproduction. We found that frost had species-specific direct and indirect effects. Frost had direct effects on two of the three species. Frost significantly reduced flower size, total flowers produced, and seed production of Erigeron. Furthermore, frost reduced aboveground plant survival and seed production for Polemonium. However, we found no direct effects of frost on Delphinium. When we considered the indirect impacts of frost mediated through changes in pollinator visitation, one species, Erigeron, incurred indirect, negative effects of frost on plant reproduction through changes in floral traits and pollinator visitation, along with direct effects. Overall, we found that flowering plants exhibited species-specific direct and pollinator-mediated indirect responses to frost, thus suggesting that frost may play an important role in affecting plant communities under climate change.

Competition, trait-mediated facilitation, and the structure of plant-pollinator communities.

In plant-pollinator communities many pollinators are potential generalists and their preferences for certain plants can change quickly in response to changes in plant and pollinator densities. These changes in preferences affect coexistence within pollinator guilds as well as within plant guilds. Using a mathematical model, we study how adaptations of pollinator preferences influence population dynamics of a two-plant-two-pollinator community interaction module. Adaptation leads to coexistence between generalist and specialist pollinators, and produces complex plant population dynamics, involving alternative stable states and discrete transitions in the plant community. Pollinator adaptation also leads to plant-plant apparent facilitation that is mediated by changes in pollinator preferences. We show that adaptive pollinator behavior reduces niche overlap and leads to coexistence by specialization on different plants. Thus, this article documents how adaptive pollinator preferences for plants change the structure and coexistence of plant-pollinator communities.

The effect of removing numerically dominant, non-native honey bees on seed set of a native plant.

Pollination services are compromised by habitat destruction, land-use intensification, pesticides, and introduced species. How pollination services respond to such stressors depends on the capacity of pollinator assemblages to function in the face of environmental disruption. Here, we quantify how pollination services provided to a native plant change upon removal of the non-native, western honey bee (Apis mellifera)-a numerically dominant floral visitor in the native bee-rich ecosystems of southern California. We focus on services provided to clustered tarweed (Deinandra fasciculata), a native, annual forb that benefits from outcross pollination. Across five different study sites in coastal San Diego County, tarweed flowers attracted 70 insect taxa, approximately half of which were native bees, but non-native honey bees were always the most abundant floral visitor at each site. To test the ability of the native insect fauna to provide pollination services, we performed Apis removals within experimental 0.25 m2 plots containing approximately 20 tarweed plants and compared visitation and seed set between plants in removal and paired control plots (n = 16 pairs). Even though 92% of observed floral visits to control plots were from honey bees, Apis removal reduced seed production by only 14% relative to plants in control plots. These results indicate that native insect assemblages can contribute important pollination services even in ecosystems numerically dominated by introduced pollinators.

A heterogeneous landscape does not guarantee high crop pollination.

The expansion of pollinator-dependent crops, especially in the developing world, together with reports of worldwide pollinator declines, raises concern of possible yield gaps. Farmers directly reliant on pollination services for food supply often live in regions where our knowledge of pollination services is poor. In a manipulative experiment replicated at 23 sites across an Ethiopian agricultural landscape, we found poor pollination services and severe pollen limitation in a common oil crop. With supplementary pollination, the yield increased on average by 91%. Despite the heterogeneous agricultural matrix, we found a low bee abundance, which may explain poor pollination services. The variation in pollen limitation was unrelated to surrounding forest cover, local bee richness and bee abundance. While practices that commonly increase pollinators (restricted pesticide use, flower strips) are an integral part of the landscape, these elements are apparently insufficient. Management to increase pollination services is therefore in need of urgent investigation.

The beta-diversity of species interactions: Untangling the drivers of geographic variation in plant-pollinator diversity and function across scales.

PREMISE OF THE STUDY: Geographic patterns of biodiversity have long inspired interest in processes that shape the assembly, diversity, and dynamics of communities at different spatial scales. To study mechanisms of community assembly, ecologists often compare spatial variation in community composition (beta-diversity) across environmental and spatial gradients. These same patterns inspired evolutionary biologists to investigate how micro- and macro-evolutionary processes create gradients in biodiversity. Central to these perspectives are species interactions, which contribute to community assembly and geographic variation in evolutionary processes. However, studies of beta-diversity have predominantly focused on single trophic levels, resulting in gaps in our understanding of variation in species-interaction networks (interaction beta-diversity), especially at scales most relevant to evolutionary studies of geographic variation. METHODS: We outline two challenges and their consequences in scaling-up studies of interaction beta-diversity from local to biogeographic scales using plant-pollinator interactions as a model system in ecology, evolution, and conservation. KEY RESULTS: First, we highlight how variation in regional species pools may contribute to variation in interaction beta-diversity among biogeographic regions with dissimilar evolutionary history. Second, we highlight how pollinator behavior (host-switching) links ecological networks to geographic patterns of plant-pollinator interactions and evolutionary processes. Third, we outline key unanswered questions regarding the role of geographic variation in plant-pollinator interactions for conservation and ecosystem services (pollination) in changing environments. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that the largest advances in the burgeoning field of interaction beta-diversity will come from studies that integrate frameworks in ecology, evolution, and conservation to understand the causes and consequences of interaction beta-diversity across scales.

Hygienic food to reduce pathogen risk to bumblebees.

Bumblebees are ecologically and economically important pollinators, and the value of bumblebees for crop pollination has led to the commercial production and exportation/importation of colonies on a global scale. Commercially produced bumblebee colonies can carry with them infectious parasites, which can both reduce the health of the colonies and spillover to wild bees, with potentially serious consequences. The presence of parasites in commercially produced bumblebee colonies is in part because colonies are reared on pollen collected from honey bees, which often contains a diversity of microbial parasites. In response to this threat, part of the industry has started to irradiate pollen used for bumblebee rearing. However, to date there is limited data published on the efficacy of this treatment. Here we examine the effect of gamma irradiation and an experimental ozone treatment on the presence and viability of parasites in honey bee pollen. While untreated pollen contained numerous viable parasites, we find that gamma irradiation reduced the viability of parasites in pollen, but did not eliminate parasites entirely. Ozone treatment appeared to be less effective than gamma irradiation, while an artificial pollen substitute was, as expected, entirely free of parasites. The results suggest that the irradiation of pollen before using it to rear bumblebee colonies is a sensible method which will help reduce the incidence of parasite infections in commercially produced bumblebee colonies, but that further optimisation, or the use of a nutritionally equivalent artificial pollen substitute, may be needed to fully eliminate this route of disease entry into factories.

Climate-driven spatial mismatches between British orchards and their pollinators: increased risks of pollination deficits.

Understanding how climate change can affect crop-pollinator systems helps predict potential geographical mismatches between a crop and its pollinators, and therefore identify areas vulnerable to loss of pollination services. We examined the distribution of orchard species (apples, pears, plums and other top fruits) and their pollinators in Great Britain, for present and future climatic conditions projected for 2050 under the SRES A1B Emissions Scenario. We used a relative index of pollinator availability as a proxy for pollination service. At present, there is a large spatial overlap between orchards and their pollinators, but predictions for 2050 revealed that the most suitable areas for orchards corresponded to low pollinator availability. However, we found that pollinator availability may persist in areas currently used for fruit production, which are predicted to provide suboptimal environmental suitability for orchard species in the future. Our results may be used to identify mitigation options to safeguard orchard production against the risk of pollination failure in Great Britain over the next 50 years; for instance, choosing fruit tree varieties that are adapted to future climatic conditions, or boosting wild pollinators through improving landscape resources. Our approach can be readily applied to other regions and crop systems, and expanded to include different climatic scenarios.

Warmer autumns and winters could reduce honey bee overwintering survival with potential risks for pollination services.

Honey bees and other pollinators are critical for food production and nutritional security but face multiple survival challenges. The effect of climate change on honey bee colony losses is only recently being explored. While correlations between higher winter temperatures and greater colony losses have been noted, the impacts of warmer autumn and winter temperatures on colony population dynamics and age structure as an underlying cause of reduced colony survival have not been examined. Focusing on the Pacific Northwest US, our objectives were to (a) quantify the effect of warmer autumns and winters on honey bee foraging activity, the age structure of the overwintering cluster, and spring colony losses, and (b) evaluate indoor cold storage as a management strategy to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change. We perform simulations using the VARROAPOP population dynamics model driven by future climate projections to address these objectives. Results indicate that expanding geographic areas will have warmer autumns and winters extending honey bee flight times. Our simulations support the hypothesis that late-season flight alters the overwintering colony age structure, skews the population towards older bees, and leads to greater risks of colony failure in the spring. Management intervention by moving colonies to cold storage facilities for overwintering has the potential to reduce honey bee colony losses. However, critical gaps remain in how to optimize winter management strategies to improve the survival of overwintering colonies in different locations and conditions. It is imperative that we bridge the gaps to sustain honey bees and the beekeeping industry and ensure food and nutritional security.

Land-use affects pollinator-specific resource availability and pollinator foraging behaviour.

Land-use management is a key factor causing pollinator declines in agricultural grasslands. This decline can not only be directly driven by land-use (e.g., habitat loss) but also be indirectly mediated through a reduction in floral resource abundance and diversity, which might in turn affect pollinator health and foraging. We conducted surveys of the abundance of flowering plant species and behavioural observations of two common generalist pollinator species, namely the bumblebee Bombus lapidarius and the syrphid fly Episyrphus balteatus, in managed grasslands of variable land-use intensity (LUI) to investigate whether land-use affects (1) resource availability of the pollinators, (2) their host plant selection and (3) pollinator foraging behaviour. We have found that the floral composition of plant species that were used as resource by the investigated pollinator species depends on land-use intensity and practices such as mowing or grazing. We have also found that bumblebees, but not syrphid flies, visit different plants depending on LUI or management type. Furthermore, LUI indirectly changed pollinator behaviour via a reduction in plot-level flower diversity and abundance. For example, bumblebees show longer flight durations with decreasing flower cover indicating higher energy expenditure when foraging on land-use intensive plots. Syrphid flies were generally less affected by local land use, showing how different pollinator groups can differently react to land-use change. Overall, we show that land-use can change resource composition, abundance and diversity for pollinators, which can in turn affect pollinator foraging behaviour and potentially contribute to pollinator decline in agricultural grasslands.

Spatial Modeling of Insect Pollination Services in Fragmented Landscapes.

Pollination mapping and modeling have opened new avenues for comprehending the intricate interactions between pollinators, their habitats, and the plants they pollinate. While the Lonsdorf model has been extensively employed in pollination mapping within previous studies, its conceptualization of bee movement in agricultural landscapes presents notable limitations. Consequently, a gap exists in exploring the effects of forest fragmentation on pollination once these constraints are addressed. In this study, our objective is to model pollination dynamics in fragmented forest landscapes using a modified version of the Lonsdorf model, which operates as a distance-based model. Initially, we generated several simulated agricultural landscapes, incorporating forested and agricultural habitats with varying forest proportions ranging from 10% to 50%, along with a range of fragmentation degrees from low to high. Subsequently, employing the modified Lonsdorf model, we evaluated the nesting suitability and consequent pollination supply capacity across these diverse scenarios. We found that as the degree of forest fragmentation increases, resulting in smaller and more isolated patches with less aggregation, the pollination services within landscapes tend to become enhanced. In conclusion, our research suggests that landscapes exhibiting fragmented forest patch patterns generally display greater nesting suitability due to increased floral resources in their vicinity. These findings highlight the importance of employing varied models for pollination mapping, as modifications to the Lonsdorf model yield distinct outcomes compared to studies using the original version.

Linking Beekeepers' and Farmers' Preferences towards Pollination Services in Greek Kiwi Systems.

The kiwi is a highly insect-pollinated dependent crop and is the cornerstone of the Greek agricultural sector, rendering the country as the fourth biggest kiwi producer worldwide, with an expected increase in national production the following years. This extensive transformation of the Greek arable land to Kiwi monocultures in combination with a worldwide shortage of pollination services due to the wild pollinators' decline raises questions for the provision of pollination services, and consequently, for the sustainability of the sector. In many countries, this shortage of pollination services has been addressed by the installation of pollination services markets, such as those in the USA and France. Therefore, this study tries to identify the barriers towards the implementation of a pollination services market in Greek kiwi production systems by conducting two separate quantitative surveys, one for beekeepers and one for kiwi producers. The findings showed a strong basis for further collaboration between the two stakeholders, as both of them acknowledge the importance of pollination services. Moreover, the farmers' willingness to pay and the beekeepers' willingness to receive of the beekeepers regarding the renting of their hives for pollination services were examined.

How Rearing Systems for Various Species of Flies Benefit Humanity.

Flies (Diptera) have played a prominent role in human history, and several fly species are reared at different scales and for different beneficial purposes worldwide. Here, we review the historical importance of fly rearing as a foundation for insect rearing science and technology and synthesize information on the uses and rearing diets of more than 50 fly species in the families Asilidae, Calliphoridae, Coelopidae, Drosophilidae, Ephydridae, Muscidae, Sarcophagidae, Stratiomyidae, Syrphidae, Tachinidae, Tephritidae, and Tipulidae. We report more than 10 uses and applications of reared flies to the well-being and progress of humanity. We focus on the fields of animal feed and human food products, pest control and pollination services, medical wound therapy treatments, criminal investigations, and on the development of several branches of biology using flies as model organisms. We highlight the relevance of laboratory-reared Drosophila melanogaster Meigen as a vehicle of great scientific discoveries that have shaped our understanding of many biological systems, including the genetic basis of heredity and of terrible diseases such as cancer. We point out key areas of fly-rearing research such as nutrition, physiology, anatomy/morphology, genetics, genetic pest management, cryopreservation, and ecology. We conclude that fly rearing is an activity with great benefits for human well-being and should be promoted for future advancement in diverse and innovative methods of improving existing and emerging problems to humanity.

Pollination crisis Down-Under: Has Australasia dodged the bullet?

Since mid-1990s, concerns have increased about a human-induced "pollination crisis." Threats have been identified to animals that act as plant pollinators, plants pollinated by these animals, and consequently human well-being. Threatening processes include loss of natural habitat, climate change, pesticide use, pathogen spread, and introduced species. However, concern has mostly been during last 10-15 years and from Europe and North America, with Australasia, known as Down-Under, receiving little attention. So perhaps Australasia has "dodged the bullet"? We systematically reviewed the published literature relating to the "pollination crisis" via Web of Science, focusing on issues amenable to this approach. Across these issues, we found a steep increase in publications over the last few decades and a major geographic bias towards Europe and North America, with relatively little attention in Australasia. While publications from Australasia are underrepresented, factors responsible elsewhere for causing the "pollination crisis" commonly occur in Australasia, so this lack of coverage probably reflects a lack of awareness rather than the absence of a problem. In other words, Australasia has not "dodged the bullet" and should take immediate action to address and mitigate its own "pollination crisis." Sensible steps would include increased taxonomic work on suspected plant pollinators, protection for pollinator populations threatened with extinction, establishing long-term monitoring of plant-pollinator relationships, incorporating pollination into sustainable agriculture, restricting the use of various pesticides, adopting an Integrated Pest and Pollinator Management approach, and developing partnerships with First Nations peoples for research, conservation and management of plants and their pollinators. Appropriate Government policy, funding and regulation could help.

A model of wild bee populations accounting for spatial heterogeneity and climate-induced temporal variability of food resources at the landscape level.

The viability of wild bee populations and the pollination services that they provide are driven by the availability of food resources during their activity period and within the surroundings of their nesting sites. Changes in climate and land use influence the availability of these resources and are major threats to declining bee populations. Because wild bees may be vulnerable to interactions between these threats, spatially explicit models of population dynamics that capture how bee populations jointly respond to land use at a landscape scale and weather are needed. Here, we developed a spatially and temporally explicit theoretical model of wild bee populations aiming for a middle ground between the existing mapping of visitation rates using foraging equations and more refined agent-based modeling. The model is developed for Bombus sp. and captures within-season colony dynamics. The model describes mechanistically foraging at the colony level and temporal population dynamics for an average colony at the landscape level. Stages in population dynamics are temperature-dependent triggered by a theoretical generalized seasonal progression, which can be informed by growing degree days. The purpose of the LandscapePhenoBee model is to evaluate the impact of system changes and within-season variability in resources on bee population sizes and crop visitation rates. In a simulation study, we used the model to evaluate the impact of the shortage of food resources in the landscape arising from extreme drought events in different types of landscapes (ranging from different proportions of semi-natural habitats and early and late flowering crops) on bumblebee populations.

A survey dataset to better understand the honey bee industry, use and value of natural resources and challenges for beekeepers in Western Australia: A beekeepers' perspective.

The summary data presented in this paper describes beekeeping practices, use of natural resources and economic attributes associated with honey bee products, native flora and environmental challenges relating to apiary sites. Despite being a well-established industry, information and data about productivity and the behavior of beekeepers, particularly those who migrate across the state of Western Australia, is lacking. We developed an online quantitative survey, the Natural Resources for Beekeepers Questionnaire (Western Australia) 2020-21, the first comprehensive, spatially referenced survey of beekeepers in Western Australia since 1990. It is also the first survey of small-scale amateur beekeepers that estimates their supply to the local honey market. For commercial beekeepers, a focus of the survey was to estimate the value of apiary sites and the productivity of migratory beekeepers. The data gives measures related to the production system and profitability of the Western Australian beekeeping industry, focusing on the 2019-2020 season and historical production. It includes tables describing memberships and certification; years beekeeping; hive types; apiary site availability, productivity, use, exchange and value; logistics; pollination services; honey bee products, sales and distribution; yields by season and site; targeted flora and commercial significance; recovery after bush fire and logging; labour details; operating costs; and asset values. The dataset in this paper is a subset of the survey results as aggregated summary statistics, categorized by type of beekeeper (Backyard, Hobbyist-Amateur and Commercial) and across eight regions (IBRA7 - Interim Biogeographic Regionalization for Australia). The online survey questionnaire is provided with this paper. Access to the survey offers the opportunity for reproducibility of a complex online questionnaire in the future and/or for other regions. This dataset will allow a more comprehensive assessment of the implications of natural resource management decisions in the future and the potential for strategic development of the beekeeping industry.