Honey bee (Apis mellifera) foraging ecology in coffee landscapes and description of “coffee garden honey”

When coffee is grown under shade trees, as in Mexico and Guatemala, coffee landscapes are complex and offer a high diversity of plants to the bees. This study focuses on the manner in which bees adapt their foraging behavior as a function of variation in tree coverage on a landscape scale. Study sites were characterized by satellite images and categorized according to percentage of tree cover: low (50–62%), medium (63–77%), and high (77–83%). Honey samples were collected from several apiaries in each landscape. In order to identify resources used by Apis mellifera, samples were analyzed according to melissopalynology. A random forest model analysis performed to compare different honeys did not show significant differences between honeys in any given landscape. Nevertheless, percentage of tree cover was positively correlated, in a significant manner, with the relative proportion of pollen from trees and from shrubs present in honey samples. These analyses, along with physical–chemical and sensory analyses ...