Context

Honey bees provide multiple ecosystem services. Comparisons of coupled social-ecological systems (SES) can improve the understanding of the factors affecting honey bees and beekeeping.

Objectives

Stressing the need for SES analyses, we explore beekeepers’ perceived factors affecting bees and beekeeping, test the hypothesis that honey bee colony losses are associated to agricultural land use intensity, and discuss the role of beekeeping for rural development.

Methods

We used as a case study the steep gradient in SES in Ukraine’s Chernivtsi region with three strata: (i) traditional villages, (ii) intermediate and (iii) intensive agriculture. In each stratum, we analysed the social system using five open-ended focus groups. Regarding the ecological system, we analysed data about winter loss rate of honey bee colonies, number of colonies per beekeeper, the average amount of supplemental feeding, and proportion of beekeepers treating against Varroa mite.

Results

Thirty-three themes were extracted, of which 73% concerned the social system at multiple levels of governance. The number of themes increased from the traditional stratum with higher winter colony losses to the intensive agriculture stratum with lower losses. This does not support the hypothesis that the intensive agriculture per se affect honey bees negatively.

Conclusions

Social system factors dominate over ecological factors, and interact across scales. This requires systems analyses of honey bees and beekeeping. We see beekeeping as a social innovation enhancing stakeholders’ navigation in social systems, thus supporting rural development in countries in transition like Ukraine.

中文翻译：

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利益相关者对维持蜜蜂健康和养蜂的观点：生态和社会系统驱动力的作用

语境

蜜蜂提供多种生态系统服务。结合社会生态系统（SES）进行比较可以增进对影响蜜蜂和养蜂的因素的了解。

目标

强调需要进行SES分析，我们探索了养蜂人感知的影响蜜蜂和养蜂的因素，检验了蜂群丧失与农业土地利用强度相关的假设，并讨论了养蜂在农村发展中的作用。

方法

我们以案例为研究对象，分析了乌克兰切尔诺夫策地区SES的陡坡具有三个层次：（i）传统村庄，（ii）中型和（iii）集约农业。在每个阶层中，我们使用五个开放性焦点小组来分析社会系统。关于生态系统，我们分析了有关蜂蜜蜂群冬季流失率，每个养蜂人的菌落数量，平均补饲量以及养蜂人对付瓦罗螨的比例的数据。

结果

提取了33个主题，其中73％与治理的多个层面的社会系统有关。主题的数量从具有较高冬季殖民地损失的传统阶层增加到具有较低损失的集约农业阶层。这不支持集约化农业本身对蜜蜂产生负面影响的假设。

结论

社会系统因素在生态因素中占主导地位，并且在各个尺度上相互作用。这需要对蜜蜂和养蜂业进行系统分析。我们将养蜂业视为一项社会创新活动，可增强利益相关者在社会系统中的导航能力，从而支持乌克兰等转型国家的农村发展。