Abstract
Most pollination in large-scale agriculture is dependent on managed colonies of a single species, the honey bee Apis mellifera. More than 1 million hives are transported to California each year just to pollinate the almonds, and bees are trucked across the country for various cropping systems. Concerns have been raised about whether such “migratory management” causes bees undue stress; however to date there have been no longer-term studies rigorously addressing whether migratory management is detrimental to bee health. To address this issue, we conducted field experiments comparing bees from commercial and experimental migratory beekeeping operations to those from stationary colonies to quantify effects on lifespan, colony health and productivity, and levels of oxidative damage for individual bees. We detected a significant decrease in lifespan of migratory adult bees relative to stationary bees. We also found that migration affected oxidative stress levels in honey bees, but that food scarcity had an even larger impact; some detrimental effects of migration may be alleviated by a greater abundance of forage. In addition, rearing conditions affect levels of oxidative damage incurred as adults. This is the first comprehensive study on impacts of migratory management on the health and oxidative stress of honey bees.
Highlights
Our ability to understand and quantify stress is critical for evaluating the impacts of abiotic and biotic factors influencing honey bee health and colony productivity
Lifespan was greater for bees reared in stationary colonies as compared to migratory colonies and for the trial conducted in June versus May, with the overall difference between treatments being approximately 1 day
After the bees returned from conducting pollination services in Maine in June, the mean was 20.49 ± 0.35 days (N = 382) for individuals from stationary colonies and 19.89 ± 0.35 days (N = 378) from migratory colonies (Fig. 2)
Summary
Our ability to understand and quantify stress is critical for evaluating the impacts of abiotic and biotic factors influencing honey bee health and colony productivity. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are the causative agents of oxidative stress, and they are produced as a by-product of normal metabolic processes (or otherwise suffer from diminished redox homeostasis). Cells that lose their ability to remove excess ROS undergo oxidative stress, which leads to DNA mutation[11], irreparable damage of proteins[12], and membrane instability[13]. We determined how the movement of managed honey bee colonies across different agricultural landscapes influenced colony health and productivity, adult lifespan, and levels of oxidative stress, measured as MDA. This study was conducted in three parts where we: 1) determined the effect of migratory management on honey bee lifespan; 2) investigated the effects of migratory management on colony health, productivity, lifespan, and oxidative stress on either stationary or migratory bees; and 3) investigated the effects of intensive, short-term migratory movement on levels of oxidative stress in honey bees
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