Mapping the Conceptual Structure of Beekeeping from 1980 to 2020

Yusuf Shehu Folaranmi Gbolahan^1,*, Akinyemi Babatope Ebenezer², Popoola Oluwabunmi Oluwaseun³

¹Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, University of Fort Hare, Alice, SOUTH AFRICA.

²Department of Animal Science, Michigan State University, East Lansing MI, USA.

³Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, University of Fort Hare, Alice, SOUTH AFRICA.

Abstract:

This article reports on the evolutionary beekeeping research trends between 1980 and 2020. The authors used bibliometric methods to retrieve data from Clarivate Analytics, Web of Science (WoS) and Elsevier’s Scopus databases and analysed it with the use of Biblioshiny. A title-specific algorithm was used to extract articles and refined the search by limiting the results to the English language and specific data sources. A total of 735 publications by 1029 authors in 165 journals were identified. The study identified subjects such as the biology of beekeeping and bee diseases, among others, as well developed in beekeeping research. The study recommends more rigorous research on the high mortality rate of bees where contesting issues are still prevalent, like genetically modified organisms, pesticides, and the impact of pollination services on bee health.

Keywords: Beekeeping, Database, Bibliometric analysis, Research domains, Publication trends.