Characterization of honey sources by geographical information system

The characterization of honey sources is a valuable tool to use more rationally the potential of the area and to improve the honey production in terms of quantity and quality. Under the Italian research project "Integration of bee knowledge through the development and calibration of a model for the simulation of the beehive" a methodology based on technologies Geographical Information System (GIS) for identifying and georeferencing the bee plants on the area around the experimental apiary of Di.Va.P.R.A. situated in Grugliasco (Turin) was developed. The procedure has the following phases: - retrieval of the Carta Tecnica Regionale (CTR) 1:10.000, Regione Piemonte; - delimitation of the study area by defining a circumference of 1.5 km radius centered on the experimental apiary (optimal bee flight radius); - transformation of the reference system of the original CTR (Gauss-Boaga) in UTM 32N WGS84; - cartographic editing of images from Google Earth to update the conditions of the local anthropic and plant context; - updating the contents of the CTR by photo interpretation of GoogleEarth 2007 images; - recognition, vectorization and attribute assignation of the entities of interest recognized with GoogleEarth georeferenced imagery and verified in the field; - derivation of honey potential by calculations made on the attribute fields of vector maps produced, involving bibliographic data and geometric data derivable with GIS procedures; - data analysis and summary statement. This procedure allowed to detect the actual use of the study area and to generate the corresponding thematic map of potential honey production.