Combined effects of waggle dance communication and landscape heterogeneity on nectar and pollen uptake in honey bee colonies

Abstract

The instructive component of waggle dance communication has been shown to increase resource uptake of Apis mellifera colonies in highly heterogeneous resource environments, but an assessment of its relevance in temperate landscapes with different levels of resource heterogeneity is currently lacking. We hypothesized that the advertisement of resource locations via dance communication would be most relevant in highly heterogeneous landscapes with large spatial variation of floral resources. To test our hypothesis, we placed 24 Apis mellifera colonies with either disrupted or unimpaired instructive component of dance communication in eight Central European agricultural landscapes that differed in heterogeneity and resource availability. We monitored colony weight change and pollen harvest as measure of foraging success. Dance disruption did not significantly alter colony weight change, but decreased pollen harvest compared to the communicating colonies by 40%. There was no general effect of resource availability on nectar or pollen foraging success, but the effect of landscape heterogeneity on nectar uptake was stronger when resource availability was high. In contrast to our hypothesis, the effects of disrupted bee communication on nectar and pollen foraging success were not stronger in landscapes with heterogeneous compared to homogenous resource environments. Our results indicate that in temperate regions intra-colonial communication of resource locations benefits pollen foraging more than nectar foraging, irrespective of landscape heterogeneity. We conclude that the so far largely unexplored role of dance communication in pollen foraging requires further consideration as pollen is a crucial resource for colony development and health.

Honey bee waggle dance communication increases diversity of pollen diets in intensively managed agricultural landscapes

“…Disrupting dance communication affected the total dry‐weight of pollen collected by honey bee colonies. Figure adapted from Nürnberger et al (), which was based on the same field experiment…”

“…In normal dark colonies, honey bee dancers on the vertical combs surface use the gravitational cue to orient the waggle‐run component of dances used to encode the direction to an advertised resource patch. By placing colonies on levelled tables and rotating them by 90° so that combs were now horizontally aligned, dancers can no longer orient their dances in a specific angle but dance in a random direction for each waggle run (Nürnberger et al, ). Dance followers are not able to use the directional component of such disoriented dances to find resource patches.…”

“…Dance communication is highly effective in recruiting foragers of western honey bee ( Apis mellifera L.) colonies to small artificial nectar sources (von Frisch, ; Sherman & Visscher, ). In natural resource environments, however, the value of directional dance communication for honey bee nectar foraging success seems to be far from general and could so far only be shown under very specific conditions (Donaldson‐Matasci & Dornhaus, ; Dornhaus & Chittka, ; Nürnberger, Steffan‐Dewenter, & Härtel, ; Okada et al, ; Sherman & Visscher, ). It can even have negative effects on nectar foraging success as it is a time consuming behaviour that is not profitable if the quality of available food patches is low (I'Anson Price, Dulex, Vial, Vincent, & Grüter, ).…”

“…It can even have negative effects on nectar foraging success as it is a time consuming behaviour that is not profitable if the quality of available food patches is low (I'Anson Price, Dulex, Vial, Vincent, & Grüter, ). Honey bee dance communication could play a larger role in pollen foraging (Nürnberger et al, ), which was rarely specifically addressed. While I'Anson Price et al () did not find effects of dance communication on pollen foraging, other studies demonstrated that disrupting the directional component of dance communication affects the composition of collected pollen and can reduce the amount of pollen gathered by colonies (Donaldson‐Matasci & Dornhaus, ), even when nectar foraging is not affected (Nürnberger et al, ).…”

“…Honey bee dance communication could play a larger role in pollen foraging (Nürnberger et al, 2017), which was rarely specifically addressed. While I'Anson Price et al (2019) did not find effects of dance communication on pollen foraging, other studies demonstrated that disrupting the directional component of dance communication affects the composition of collected pollen and can reduce the amount of pollen gathered by colonies (Donaldson-Matasci & Dornhaus, 2014), even when nectar foraging is not affected (Nürnberger et al, 2017). Importantly, different plant species produce pollen with different quality, quantity and composition of proteins, lipids, sterols, and vitamins (Roulston & Cane, 2000) and thus vary strongly in quality for honey bee nutrition (Haydak, 1970).…”