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Pier Paolo Danieli is a Professor at the Department of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences at University of Tuscia (UNITUS-DAFNE), in Italy.
As part of PLANT-B, he is a lead partner in WP3, which seeks to enhance the conservation and valorization of endemic honey bee subspecies. He is also a contributing partner to WP2 on the development of biological control and IPM tools for the control of pests in citrus, aromatic plants and honey bee colonies.
1) The pandemic lockdown has been vert stringent across Italy. Has this affected the health of your bee hives?
In Viterbo, where our PLANT-B research apiary is located, the situation has been rather complicated: the bees consume more nectar than they can store. In Sicily however, the bees have been doing quite well, even though the orange trees stopped blooming a few weeks ago, because of abnormally hot and dry weather. But we are quite hopeful that the situation will improve in the coming two months, and that we will be able to fully resume the PLANT-B’s activities. If things go well, by next year we will be able to advise beekeepers in Sicily and Campania on how to manage varroa-related problems as part of PLANT-B, and suggest the use of hop acids. While hop acids seem to be promising in dealing with varroa mites, so far, its use in Italy is limited to scientific experiments. We are planning to conduct trials using iron as well, which stimulate bees to be more active, and copper that has been reported to help the bees against the varroa mite .
2) Could you describe the case studies you’ve designed to develop a mixed farming system combining citrus, aromatic plants and beekeeping in Italy?
We have established 14 case studies on orange orchards (mainly Navel cultivar) on fields spanning 0.5 to 1.5 hectares with honey bee hives and aromatic plants. But they will be cultivated in three different ways: with integrated pest management, which will contain also aromatic plants, organically, or conventionally (to be used as control). The aromatic plants we have selected are rosemary, marjoram, and common thyme. This year, we will focus on gathering data to set up a baseline to establish apiaries, and in 2021, we will start to collect data on the bees. We will also assess the level of production and try to apply the best methods to fight varroa.
3) Honey bees can benefit a lot from being located near citrus trees, because they can feed on the citrus blossom nectar and produce honey. But is there an advantage of bees pollination for the citrus fruits themselves?
Not in a direct way. But if a farmer can show that his citrus production is compatible with honey production, it gives his product a marked benefit in terms of perception. He shows that his production safeguards honeybees. Farmers’ associations can inform consumers that the oranges they produce are not only safe, but that they also protect bees. In addition, an efficient integrated pest management strategy can be very regenerative for the field, and is always a cheaper option than pesticides for farmers. In Campania, some farmers have stopped using chemicals and show that they respect the value of the product: they produce less, but the quality of their product is higher.
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