Abstract
The increasing demand on pollination services leads food industry to consider new strategies for management of pollinators to improve their efficiency in agroecosystems. Recently, it was demonstrated that feeding beehives food scented with an odorant mixture mimicking the floral scent of a crop (sunflower mimic, SM) enhanced foraging activity and improved recruitment to the target inflorescences, which led to higher density of bees on the crop and significantly increased yields. Besides, the oral administration of nonsugar compounds (NSC) naturally found in nectars (caffeine and arginine) improved short and long-term olfactory memory retention in conditioned bees under laboratory conditions. To test the effect of offering of SM-scented food supplemented with NSC on honeybees pollinating sunflower for hybrid seed production, in a commercial plantation we fed colonies SM-scented food (control), and SM-scented food supplemented with either caffeine, arginine, or a mixture of both, in field realistic concentrations. Their foraging activity was assessed at the hive and on the crop up to 90 h after treatment, and sunflower yield was estimated prior to harvest. Our field results show that SM + Mix-treated colonies exhibited the highest incoming rates and densities on the crop. Additionally, overall seed mass was significantly higher by 20% on inflorescences close to these colonies than control colonies. Such results suggest that combined NSC potentiate olfactory learning of a mimic floral odor inside the hive, promoting faster colony-level foraging responses and increasing crop production.
Highlights
The increasing demand on pollination services leads food industry to consider new strategies for management of pollinators to improve their efficiency in agroecosystems
To evaluate whether the circulation of scented food supplemented with nonsugar compounds (NSC) inside the hives altered foraging activity, we stimulated bee colonies offering sunflower mimic (SM)-scented food (SM) as control, or SM-scented food supplemented with caffeine (SM + CAFF), arginine (SM + ARG) or a mixture of both compounds (SM + Mix)
The incoming rates did not differ between control colonies and those fed SM + ARG, nor did they vary between colonies receiving the individual NSC (p > 0.05)
Summary
The increasing demand on pollination services leads food industry to consider new strategies for management of pollinators to improve their efficiency in agroecosystems. To test the effect of offering of SM-scented food supplemented with NSC on honeybees pollinating sunflower for hybrid seed production, in a commercial plantation we fed colonies SM-scented food (control), and SM-scented food supplemented with either caffeine, arginine, or a mixture of both, in field realistic concentrations Their foraging activity was assessed at the hive and on the crop up to 90 h after treatment, and sunflower yield was estimated prior to harvest. Overall seed mass was significantly higher by 20% on inflorescences close to these colonies than control colonies Such results suggest that combined NSC potentiate olfactory learning of a mimic floral odor inside the hive, promoting faster colony-level foraging responses and increasing crop production. This study shows that feeding colonies a rewarding mimic odor allowed bees to establish olfactory memories that conditioned them to forage on the sunflower crop This was evinced by higher foraging activity, increased recruitment towards the target inflorescences and reduced delays in waggle dance onset. The administration of arginine in a concentration of 0.001 mM can affect short-term memory (STM) processing in b ees[16,32]
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