INTRODUCTION Climate is very important for honey bee, Apis mellifera, colonies’ activity and productivity due to its impacts on honey bees and their diseases as well as the floral environment (Le Conte and Navajas, 2008). Currently, climate change is considered as the main future threat (Yoruk and Sahinler, 2013) due to its consequences on all living organisms including plants and their pollinators (Rader et al., 2013). However, few studies have been done on the impacts of climate change on honey bees, and the review article by Reddy et al. (2012) has shown that. The impacts of climate change are expected to influence, for example, plants and bee distribution (Le Conte and Navajas, 2008), flowering time of plants (Fitter and Fitter 2002; Scaven and Rafferty, 2013; Yoruk and Sahinler, 2013) and the interaction between plants and their pollinators (Hegland et al., 2009; Scaven and Rafferty, 2013). A possible decrease by about 14.5% in plants pollination by honey bee colonies is expected to happen (Rader et al., 2013). Thus, understanding impacts of climate change on honey bee colonies will help in preparing early solutions for possible future challenges. Different tools have been employed to study impacts of stress factors (e.g. weather, land cover, food resources ... etc) on honey bee colonies and Geographical Information System (GIS) is one of them. GIS has been applied in apiculture for various objectives including for example; identification of land cover impacts on apiculture over time Expectations about the Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Honey Bee Colonies in Egypt Hossam F. Abou-Shaara* Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Damanhour University, P.O.Box 22516, Damanhour, Egypt (Received 6 June 2016; Revised 28 June 2016; Accepted 28 June 2016) 157 There are enormous challenges for managed honey bee, Apis mellifera, colonies in the world. Climate change is expected to be the major threat for honey bees in the future. Climate change can impact honey bee colonies negatively and/or positively. Unfortunately, few studies have been done on impacts of climate change on beekeeping. In this research, the possible changes in temperature and some bioclimatic factors in Egypt during near future 2070 were investigated using available datasets. Geographical information system (GIS) was used to perform the study. Potential impacts of climate change on honey bee colonies were then expected using visual comparison technique. It is expected that thermal stress on honey bee colonies in Egypt will be the major problem for beekeepers especially during summer. No major changes are expected to happen in the other bioclimatic factors including precipitation. Beekeepers are advised to harvest honey from their colonies earlier than current time. Some honey bee diseases and pests are not expected to be a great challenge in the near future. For future challenges, studies towards obtaining heat tolerant bees are very essential. Developing suitable methods for protecting honey bee colonies from thermal stress during summer are required. Key words: Apis mellifera, Visual comparison, Ecology, Apiculture, GIS Abstract ] Journal of Apiculture 31(2) : 157~164 (2016) *Corresponding author. E-mail: hossam.farag@agr.dmu.edu.eg Original Article