Honey Bee Analysis

Table of Contents

1. Project Overview
2. Data
3. Methodology
4. EDA
5. Modification of Data
6. Visualizations
7. Interpretation of Results
8. References

Project Overview

The purpose of this project is to gain insight into the financial effects of the declining honey bee (Apis Mellifera Linnaeus) population in the United States. "Honey bees alone pollinate 80 percent of all flowering plants, including more than 130 types of fruits and vegetables” (1) making them a keystone species and essential for the reproduction of non-asexual flora.

Data

The data was retrieved in the form of a CSV file from Kaggle.com and provided by the National Agricultural Statistics Service of the USDA https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/mohitpoudel/us-honey-production-19952021.

Methodology

• Python: EDA, modification, and cleaning of data
• Tableau: Reporting

EDA

Initial exploration of the data shows that there are no missing values and the datatypes are correct.

Modification of Data

• Column "year": transformed to string dtype
• Column "unnamed: 0" removed as it is redundant
• Column "colonies_number": values were scaled for improved visibility in plotting. All values were multiplied by 0.001 (ex: 1500.0 -> 15.0)
• Column "average_price": values were scaled to better reflect the price of honey by the pound (ex: intitial value of 86.0 -> 8.60)

Visualizations

Visualizations can be viewed and interacted with by downloading the .twb file included in the repository. Static visualizations are included for convenience.

• Figure 1 shows the decline of production levels in the top 5 honey producing states

• Figure 2 shows stocks held by producers. The color represents the average price of honey.

• Figure 3 shows the average colony yield in LBS per state (continental US only)

• Figure 4 shows the combined visualizations in a tableau dashboard. The year slider can be altered to show custom time ranges and is applied to all of the visualizations simultaneously.

Interpretation of Results

Observation of the data trends shows an obvious decline of bee population and honey production. It would be unwise for potential investors to divert funds into the honey industry as stocks are being liquidated frequently by major holders. We likely will not see an return in profits until the reason for population decline is accurately diagnosed and addressed by the relevant authorities. One potential solution would be to create a highly controlled environment for the purpose of stable honey production as most production facilities are outdoors and subject to external influences from nature such as disease and pesticides.

References

(1): Randall, Brianna. “The Value of Birds and Bees.” Farmers.gov, 22 June 2020, www.farmers.gov/blog/value-birds-and-bees