The foraging economics of honey bees in almonds

We develop a model of honey bee foraging behavior that can be used to simulate crop yields as functions of honey bee densities. These yield functions help us understand the economic behavior of growers who rely on bees for pollination. One important simulation result for the case of almonds is that the production function facing growers is close to one of fixed proportion in pollination input. Accordingly, the modeling of the foraging behavior of bees provides an explanation for the observed lack of variation in pollinator use and shows how the behavior of bees and growers are connected.