Beekeeping improves shea pollination and fruit set in West African Agroforestry parklands

Shea (Vitellaria paradoxa C.F Gaertn) is a fruit tree of domestic and industrial importance in arid and semi-arid regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. Fruit set is largely dependent on insect pollination but recent studies have revealed a pollen deficit. Introduction of managed bees into orchards is an effective approach for enhanced pollination services in temperate climates. However, there is limited information to guide the adoption of this practice in shea agroforestry parklands.
This study investigated the effect of managed honey bee colonies (Apis mellifera) on fruit yield in six shea parklands across three regions of Ghana.
Tree proximity to the apiary had a detectable effect on fruit set within a 500 m range of the apiary.  Proximity of shea trees to apiary was significantly related to number of immature fruit set but not number of mature fruits. Fruit weight and size were not significantly related to distance from apiary nor pollination treatment.
This implies that the introduction o..., Field layout and tree selection
 
The study was conducted in shea parklands of six selected sites in Upper West, Upper East and North East regions of Ghana. In each region, two replicate sites were selected ensuring a minimum distance of 4 km and a maximum of 25 km to minimize variability in climatic conditions between sites (Figure 1).  Experimental sites were located in young fallows (shea parklands that were uncultivated for 2-5 years) that had established apiaries. The selected parklands had apiaries of ten empty beehives each installed in July 2017.   Sites that had six to eight hives colonised by Apis mellifera adansonii as of October 2020 were selected for the study. Apis mellifera is native to the Guinea savanna and known to be a primary pollinator of shea (Kwapong 2014).
 
In the shea parkland, four distances;100, 500, 1000 and 4000m (control) away from the apiary were established. The control was located at 4000m away from the apiary considering the design of Delaney et al. (2..., , # Beekeeping improves shea pollination and fruit set in West African Agroforestry parklands

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.z612jm6kt](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.z612jm6kt)

The experiment was conducted in six shea parklands to assess the influence of beekeeping on shea pollination. Apiaries were established in each shea parkland and fruit set was recorded on focal trees located at different distance ranges (100 m, 500 m, 1000 m, and 4000 m) away from apiaries. At each distance range, five focal trees were randomly selected. Three pollination treatments (open pollination, bagged, and hand pollination) were applied to tagged inflorescences of each focal tree.  Data was collected biweekly on the number of fruit set per tagged inflorescence. Weight, length,  and weight of fruits and nuts after harvest.

## Description of the data and file structure

The dataset consists of four worksheets; \"Fertilisation\", \"no. of immature fruits\", \"no. of mature fruits\" and \"fruit&seed traits\".

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