Wintering Map for Honey Bee Colonies in El-Behera Governorate, Egypt by using Geographical Information System (GIS)

The geographical information system (GIS) has been used successfully in many studies to solve apicultural problems. The winter season is considered as a challenge for honey bee colonies due to the cold weather which cause the forfeiture of many colonies. The good wintering of honey bee colonies depends mainly on the wintering regions and beekeeping practices. To identify the suitable regions for colonies wintering at El-Behera governorate, different datasets were prepared and spatially analyzed by using ArcGIS. The input datasets were temperature, distance from roads, distance from plants, land cover, slope and precipitation. Two wintering maps were created; all the datasets were combined at the same weight in one map and at different weights in the other map. The two maps showed similarities in their spatial outputs. The suitable areas for colonies wintering were successfully identified. The spatial statistical analysis showed significant differences between the suitable regions and the unsuitable regions. The described model in the present research can be applied elsewhere for the successful identification of suitable wintering regions.