Native vegetation embedded in landscapes dominated by corn and soybean improves honey bee health and productivity

Abstract

Balancing demand for food while supporting biodiversity and ecosystem services in landscapes committed to crop production may require integrating conservation with agriculture. Adding strips of diverse, native, perennial vegetation, through the recently created prairie strips practice of the U.S. Conservation Reserve Program, into annual cropland reduces soil and nutrient loss, and supports more diverse and abundant communities of birds and insects, including native pollinators. It remains unclear if prairie strips can reverse declines in the health and productivity of the exotic honey bee in the U.S. This study determined if prairie strips provide floral resources to honey bees and support colony vigour, in a highly farmed landscape with limited perennial habitat. We hypothesized that honey bee health and productivity would be improved if given access to prairie strips, and this hypothesis was tested in a multi‐year, replicated, longitudinal study on commercial, conventional farms committed to corn and soybean production with and without prairie strips. We predicted that prairie strips would have more diverse flowering plants, and colonies located in these strips would be healthier and more productive than colonies kept at farms without purposefully established native vegetation (i.e. control fields). We found that prairie strips had more diverse flowering plants and abundant floral resources than control fields. Colonies kept at fields with prairie strips collected 50% more pollen during the growing season (June–September), had a 24% larger end‐of‐season worker bee populations, and 20% higher overwinter survival than colonies kept at control fields. Furthermore, colonies kept at prairie strips were 24% heavier when they reached their peak‐weight in August, an indicator of honey production. Honey bees collected pollen from flowering plants found in prairie strips, revealing the potential for interactions with wild pollinators. However, this was limited to 50% of the taxa in prairie strips, suggesting honey bees may not deplete all of the food resources simultaneously used by wild pollinators. Synthesis and applications. Our results suggest that efforts to enhance habitat diversity within croplands with native plants increase honey bee health and productivity while providing multiple additional ecosystem services important to agriculture.

Evaluating Different Methods to Establish Biodiverse Swards of Native Grasses and Wildflowers for Pasturelands

“…Of the sown species, grey-headed coneflower, black-eyed Susan and Ohio spiderwort produced the most blooms by 2023. Since these were mostly summer-flowering species, such a bloom distribution was not ideal, especially given previous research suggesting pollinators' need for both early spring and late summer/fall floral resources [33]. Planting strategies like those investigated by [22] where early, mid, and late season-flowering WFs are planted in small monocultures might encourage a more favorable seasonal distribution of flower production that would benefit more pollinators.…”

One for all and all for one: a review on the commonality of risk to honeybees and wild pollinators and the benefits of beekeepers in conservation

“…In addition to maintaining preexisting diversity, restoring natural diversity in agricultural landscapes can increase the volume of food available: An experiment performed by Zhang et al (2023) examining prairie strips in an agricultural landscape found that honeybees collected 50% more pollen and colonies were 24% larger at the end of season monitoring. Many of the resources in the strips were left uncollected, meaning there was the potential capacity to provide food for other species.…”

Bad air quality raises mortality in honey bees, a concern for all pollinators

“…To find out the impact of various environmental stressors, air quality-related, on honey bee colonies, our analysis incorporated a range of environmental factors that contribute to the decline of bee populations 6,7,[13][14][15][16] , including the daily Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) 17 , daily average temperature, daily total precipitation, daily mean wind speed, and an index measuring vegetation intensity (NDVI) (see Methods for further details). In addition, we employed anonymized data with a sample size of over 29,044 hives covering 5,000 sites tracked over two seasons across North America from 2020 to 2022 (Extended Data Fig.…”

“…Furthermore, the study highlights the significance of prolonged foraging hours in response to suboptimal air quality. It emphasizes the link between sustained pesticide exposure and its subsequent impact on honeybees 14,[42][43][44][45] , evident up to 48 hours after adverse air quality events. Here, we present a risk map for honey beehives in 2023 (Fig.…”

“…By utilizing publicly accessible data, we examined various environmental factors likely to impact bees' well-being and ultimate survival 6,7,[13][14][15][16] . Our analysis encompassed daily measurements of the Air Quality Health Index (AQHI), temperature, precipitation, mean wind speed, and one measure of vegetation density derived from satellite imagery.…”