Abstract
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.
Highlights
Many insect populations around the world have faced rapid declines in recent decades due to human-induced landscape changes, including massive increases in the area of land devoted to monocrop agriculture [1,2,3,4]
In August and September, an estimated 32.2% of dances advertising nectar sources were for sites within reconstructed prairies (Figs 3 and 2), showing a statistically significant seasonal change (Fig 3; Table 1)
We determined that honey bee foragers do perceive seven taxa of native prairie flowers as profitable pollen sources and advertise them with dances: Solidago spp., Dalea purpurea, Agastache sp., Dalea candida, Ambrosia spp., Chamaecrista fasciculata, and a member of the tribe Heliantheae
Summary
Many insect populations around the world have faced rapid declines in recent decades due to human-induced landscape changes, including massive increases in the area of land devoted to monocrop agriculture [1,2,3,4]. The most widely managed crop pollinator species, Apis mellifera L., the European honey bee, contributes an estimated $14 billion yearly in pollination services in the United States alone [7]. Beekeepers have seen increased honey bee colony mortality in several regions, including the United States [8,9]. Parasites, and pesticides undoubtedly contribute to high colony mortality, poor nutrition likely plays a key role [6,9,10,11,12,13,14]. 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]
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