Skip to content
Research Article Open access CC BY 3.0

The Economic Value of Bees as Pollinators of Crops in Iran

Mohammad Mousaei Sanjerehei

Annual Research & Review in Biology · pp. 2957–2964 · Published 23 May 2014

10.9734/ARRB/2014/10200

Abstract

Assessment of the economic value of crop pollination by bees necessitates the need for conserving the insect pollinator diversity. A decline in the population of insect pollinators in ecosystems can result in a decrease in crop production, vegetation cover, an extinction of a number of plant species, and as a result the degradation of ecosystem services and health. The economic value of bee pollinators was determined based on the portion of the value of crops attributed to pollination by bees. This value was calculated based on the yield and the value of each crop, the dependency of each crop on bee pollinators and the proportion of wild native bee and honey bee pollinators. The economic value of crop pollination by bees was 6.59 billion dollars, of which, 5.72 billion dollars is attributable to the pollinators that are honey bees and 0.87 billion dollars is attributable to native bees. The value of the crops pollinated by bees was estimated to be 25% of the total value of crops. The value of crops pollinated by honey bees was 54 times the value of honey production by bees. Based on the economic value of bee pollinators, the use of organic farming techniques, the use of less toxic and highly selective pesticides and herbicides, construction of nest boxes for pollinators and introduction of a variety of native plant species can help to conserve high level of diversity of bee pollinator species and the pollination services.

Bee crops economic value insect pollinators pollination

References (27)

  1. 1 The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [DOI]
  2. 2 Nature's Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems [DOI]
  3. 3 The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants [DOI]
  4. 4 The Economic Value of Ecological Services Provided by Insects [DOI]
  5. 5 Crop pollination from native bees at risk from agricultural intensification [DOI]
  6. 6 Managing ecosystem services: what do we need to know about their ecology? [DOI]
  7. 7 The area requirements of an ecosystem service: crop pollination by native bee communities in California [DOI]
  8. 8 Wild bees enhance honey bees’ pollination of hybrid sunflower [DOI]
  9. 9 Tropical Forest Fragments Enhance Pollinator Activity in Nearby Coffee Crops [DOI]
  10. 10 The value of honey bees as pollinators of U.S. Crops in 2000.
  11. 11 Communications in Agricultural and Applied Biological Sciences
  12. 12 Flying Foxes (Chiroptera: Pteropodidae): Threatened Animals of Key Ecological and Economic Importance [DOI]
  13. 13 The Economic Impacts of Pollinator Declines: An Approach to Assessing the Consequences [DOI]
  14. 14 Pollination Directory for World Crops
  15. 15 The Economic Value of the Pollination Service, a Review Across Scales [DOI]
  16. 16 NATIVE BEES, NATIVE PLANTS, AND CROP POLLINATION IN CALIFORNIA
  17. 17 A survey of bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) from Fars Province, Iran [DOI]
  18. 18 New records for the bee fauna of Iran (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) [DOI]
  19. 19 Identification of Insect Pollinators of Three Different Cultivars of Winter Canola and their Effect on Seed Yield in Isfahan
  20. 20 On the bee fly (Diptera: Bombyliidae) fauna from West Azarbaijan Province of Iran
  21. 21 Identification and introduction of some Iran pollinator bees of Colletidae, Halictidae, and Megachilidae (Hym: Apoidea).
  22. 22 THE EFFECTS OF INSECT POLLINATORS ON FRUIT SET OF GOLAB CULTIVAR APPLE IN SHIRAZ
  23. 23 ASSESSMENT OF APICULTURAL POTENTIAL IN POLOUJ.:'SUMMER RANGELANDS
  24. 24 TECHNOLOGY OF BIOLOGICAL CONTROL AND POLLINATION OF IRANIAN CUCUMBER CULTIVARS IN PROTECTED CULTIVATION AND ORGANIC PRODUCTION CROP
  25. 25 IDENTIFICATION OF FARS BONEY BEE PLANT RESOURCES FROM THREE FAMILIES IN FARS PROVINCE (ASTERACEAE, PAPILIONACEAE AND LAMIACEAE)
  26. 26 The ecology of invasions by animals and plants [DOI]
  27. 27 Pollination directory for world crops [DOI]

Cited by 23

Stability and Oscillatory Dynamics in Fractional Ecological Models Using a Crossing Boundary Framework

J. Escalante-Martínez, Porfirio Toledo, José Alfredo Zavaleta-Viveros · Acta Applicandae Mathematicae - An International Survey Journal on Applying Mathematics and Mathematical Applications · 2025

Estimating potential range shift of some wild bees in response to climate change scenarios in northwestern regions of Iran

Ehsan Rahimi, Shahindokht Barghjelveh, P. Dong · Journal of Ecology and Environment · 2021

Transfer of plant protection products from raspberry crops of Laszka and Seedling varieties to beehives

B. Piechowicz, Karolina Mróz, E. Szpyrka · Environmental Monitoring & Assessment · 2018

Transfer of the Active Ingredients of Some Plant Protection Products from Raspberry Plants to Beehives

B. Piechowicz, E. Szpyrka, L. Zarȩba · Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology · 2017

Using ecological niche modeling to model invasion risk of hornets (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) in Iran

Ehsan Rahimi, Chuleui Jung · Journal of Ecology and Environment · 2025

Factors Affecting Immune Responses in Honey Bees: An Insight

Gurleen Kaur, Rohit Sharma, Ashun Chaudhary · Journal of Apicultural Science · 2021

Fractional Derivatives and Hopf Bifurcation in Ecological Interactions Among Plants, Pollinators, and Herbivores

Jesús Enrique Escalante-Martínez, Porfirio Toledo, José Alfredo Zavaleta-Viveros · Modeling and Optimization in Science and Technologies · 2025

Foraging Attributes of Insect Pollinators on Tulsi (Ocimum basilicum)

Ankur Kumar, Sandeep Singh, Ajit Pandey · UTTAR PRADESH JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY · 2024

Cantaloupe, Honeydew, Melon, Muskmelon

· Crop Pollination by Bees, Volume 2 · 2023

Showing 10 of 23 known citations — external sources report more than can currently be individually listed.

Article metrics

Real usage data collected on this platform.

36

Page views

0

PDF downloads

3

Outbound clicks

23

Citations

Views over time

Views by country

Approximate, from request IP at view time — not citizenship or institution. Countries with fewer than 5 views are grouped as "Other".

Traffic sources

Referring site, by host.

Views and downloads exclude known bots/crawlers. Citations combines this platform's own DOI-resolved index with each external source's own reported total — see Cited by above for individually listed citing works. Last refreshed 0 seconds ago.