Holistic Approach to Colony Colapse Disorder

Forest Gardening is an intentional planting of perennial fruit, nut, herbs and flowers to mimic a natural occurring landscape. Using forest gardening can help reduce the amount of maintenance required to produce the food crop that one desires. It resembles an ecological coherence that is able to continue growing like a natural occurring forest.  This idea of forest gardening is not a new one; essentially it is using the natural occurring landscape to plant certain crops that may do well there.

                The idea of a food forest first came to me when I was a junior in college. Within the Stockbridge School of Agriculture a group of individuals decided to plant a food forest at the agriculture learning center. These trees that were planted included a long list of perennial berries, fruits and herbs that would produce within a few years.

                Looking at the food forest model and realizing that this type of system works in the northeast, I decided to set out on a quest to create a food forest that not only produced enough fruits, vegetables, nuts, and herbs for my family and I but also enough of a nectar source for the native, and honey bees of my area.

                In Massachusetts we have two nectar flows the first is from mid-May until mid-June and the second is from mid-August until mid-September. Due to Massachusetts having two nectar flows I decided that the best thing to do was to plant various fruit trees, nuts, and herbs that were early season and late season or long blooming. This way when a dearth is on honey bees will have enough nectar and pollen to gather to keep their population from crashing before the second nectar flow.

                By using this model I am testing out a two different hypotheses; how many trees, herbs, and shrubs is it necessary for an individual to maintain to produce 65% of their diet. How many trees, herbs, and shrubs is it necessary for an individual to maintain for pollen and nectar for a single bee hive. Due to not having a large scale production I can only test a few hives and see how the honey bees do with plants that are supplemented to produce nectar and pollen during a natural dearth.