Emerging Themes from the ESA Symposium Entitled “Pollinator Nutrition: Lessons from Bees at Individual to Landscape Levels”

Corby‐Harris, Vanessa; Bowsher, Julia H.; Carr-Markell, Morgan K.; Carroll, Mark J.; Centrella, Mary; Cook, Steven C.; Couvillon, Margaret J.; DeGrandi-Hoffman, Gloria; Doležal, Adam; Jones, Julia C.; Mogren, Christina L.; Otto, Clint R. V.; Lau, Pierre; Rangel, Juliana; Schürch, Roger; Clair, Ashley L. St.

doi:10.1080/0005772x.2018.1535951

Cited by 12 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 81 publications

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“…Diverse pollen sources help honey bees combat pathogens and parasites [20,21,22,23] and increase their ability to detoxify pesticides [24]. Colonies living in the temperate zone must respond to frequent changes in the species of blooming flowers from spring to fall [25,26] and may experience periods of dearth where temperatures remain high but few rewarding flowers bloom [27,28].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do honey bee (Apis mellifera) foragers recruit their nestmates to native forbs in reconstructed prairie habitats?

et al. 2020

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Honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies are valued for the pollination services that they provide. However, colony mortality has increased to unsustainable levels in some countries, including the United States. Landscape conversion to monocrop agriculture likely plays a role in this increased mortality by decreasing the food sources available to honey bees. Many land owners and organizations in the Upper Midwest region of the United States would like to restore/reconstruct native prairie habitats. With increasing public awareness of high bee mortality, many landowners and beekeepers have wondered whether these restored prairies could significantly improve honey bee colony nutrition. Conveniently, honey bees have a unique communication signal called a waggle dance, which indicates the locations of the flower patches that foragers perceive as highly profitable food sources. We used these communication signals to answer two main questions: First, is there any part of the season in which the foraging force of a honey bee colony will devote a large proportion of its recruitment efforts (waggle dances) to flower patches within prairies? Second, will honey bee foragers advertise specific taxa of native prairie flowers as profitable pollen sources? We decoded 1528 waggle dances in colonies located near two large, reconstructed prairies. We also collected pollen loads from a subset of waggle-dancing bees, which we then analyzed to determine the flower taxon advertised. Most dances advertised flower patches outside of reconstructed prairies, but the proportion of dances advertising nectar sources within prairies increased significantly in the late summer/fall at one site. Honey bees advertised seven native prairie taxa as profitable pollen sources, although the three most commonly advertised pollen taxa were non-native. Our results suggest that including certain native prairie flower taxa in reconstructed prairies may increase the chances that colonies will use those prairies as major food sources during the period of greatest colony growth and honey production.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do honey bee (Apis mellifera) foragers recruit their nestmates to native forbs in reconstructed prairie habitats?

et al. 2020

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“…Crape myrtle has been documented as a pollen source for native and non-native bees in other studies [82–85]. In fact, crape myrtle may be undervalued for its contributions to honey bee nutrition in the late summer months, a period when colonies can experience severe resource dearth [86]. Therefore, the “predominant” presence of crape myrtle pollen we observed in the summer suggests that some of our study colonies relied on the presence of this ornamental plant in urban environments for pollen acquisition [80, 87].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal variation of pollen collected by honey bees (Apis mellifera) in developed areas across four regions in the United States

et al. 2019

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For honey bees ( Apis mellifera ), colony maintenance and growth are highly dependent on worker foragers obtaining sufficient resources from flowering plants year round. Despite the importance of floral diversity for proper bee nutrition, urban development has drastically altered resource availability and diversity for these important pollinators. Therefore, understanding the floral resources foraged by bees in urbanized areas is key to identifying and promoting plants that enhance colony health in those environments. In this study, we identified the pollen foraged by bees in four developed areas of the U.S., and explored whether there were spatial or temporal differences in the types of floral sources of pollen used by honey bees in these landscapes. To do this, pollen was collected every month for up to one year from colonies located in developed (urban and suburban) sites in California, Texas, Florida, and Michigan, except during months of pollen dearth or winter. Homogenized pollen samples were acetolyzed and identified microscopically to the lowest taxonomic level possible. Once identified, each pollen type was classified into a frequency category based on its overall relative abundance. Species richness and diversity indices were also calculated and compared across states and seasons. We identified up to 64 pollen types belonging to 39 plant families in one season (California). Species richness was highest in CA and lowest in TX, and was highest during spring in every state. In particular, “predominant” and “secondary” pollen types belonged to the families Arecaceae, Sapindaceae, Anacardiaceae, Apiaceae, Asteraceae, Brassicaceae, Fabaceae, Fagaceae, Lythraceae, Myrtaceae, Rhamnaceae, Rosaceae, Rutaceae, Saliaceae, and Ulmaceae. This study will help broaden our understanding of honey bee foraging ecology and nutrition in urban environments, and will help promote the use of plants that serve the dual purpose of providing aesthetic value and nutritious forage for honey bee colonies placed in developed landscapes.

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“…Considering our results in the context of previous work, our observed patterns of high temporal variability in the quality and quantity of pollen collected by honey bees with some evidence of a land use signal suggests that native bees could also face pollen limitations due to land use. Evidence is mixed as to whether honey bees can even detect or discriminate between pollens based on quality (e.g., Pernal and Currie 2001, Cook et al 2003, Corby-Harris et al 2019, as individual foragers are more likely to target, and recruit nestmates to, large patches of abundant flowers where they may collect greater quantities of pollen regardless of resource quality (Leonhardt andBluthgen 2012, Vaudo et al 2016). However, there is some recent evidence that honey bees diversify the species of pollens collected at a colony-level (Nürnberger et al 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Across systems, forage limitations and poor nutrition caused by land use change are cited as primary drivers of declines in both managed and native bees (Potts et al 2010, Vaudo et al 2015. Thus, quantifying the value of landscapes based on the nutrition they confer to bees has been highlighted as a key area of study for countering population declines and improving the health of both native and managed bee species (Roulston and Goodell 2011, Woodard and Jha 2017, Corby-Harris et al 2019. Land-use change can reduce floral abundance and richness which thereby restricts the quality and quantity of floral resources available to bees (Goulson et al 2015).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Do the Quality and Quantity of Honey Bee-Collected Pollen Vary Across an Agricultural Land-Use Gradient?

Simanonok

Otto

Smart

2019

Environmental Entomology

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Pollen is the source of protein for most bee species, yet the quality and quantity of pollen is variable across landscapes and growing seasons. Understanding the role of landscapes in providing nutritious forage to bees is important for pollinator health, particularly in areas undergoing significant land-use change such as in the Northern Great Plains (NGP) region of the United States where grasslands are being converted to row crops. We investigated how the quality and quantity of pollen collected by honey bees (Apis mellifera L. [Hymenoptera: Apidae]) changed with land use and across the growing season by sampling bee-collected pollen from apiaries in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota, USA, throughout the flowering season in 2015–2016. We quantified protein content and quantity of pollen to investigate how they varied temporally and across a land-use gradient of grasslands to row crops. Neither pollen weight nor crude protein content varied linearly across the land-use gradient; however, there were significant interactions between land use and sampling date across the season, particularly in grasslands. Generally, pollen protein peaked mid-July while pollen weight had two maxima in late-June and late-August. Results suggest that while land use itself may not correlate with the quality or quantity of pollen resources collected by honey bees among our study apiaries, the nutritional landscape of the NGP is seasonally dynamic, especially in certain land covers, and may impose seasonal resource limitations for both managed and native bee species. Furthermore, results indicate periods of qualitative and quantitative pollen dearth may not coincide.

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Emerging Themes from the ESA Symposium Entitled “Pollinator Nutrition: Lessons from Bees at Individual to Landscape Levels”

Cited by 12 publications

References 81 publications

Do honey bee (Apis mellifera) foragers recruit their nestmates to native forbs in reconstructed prairie habitats?

Do honey bee (Apis mellifera) foragers recruit their nestmates to native forbs in reconstructed prairie habitats?

Seasonal variation of pollen collected by honey bees (Apis mellifera) in developed areas across four regions in the United States

Do the Quality and Quantity of Honey Bee-Collected Pollen Vary Across an Agricultural Land-Use Gradient?

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