The impact of food stores on honey bee foraging in carrots

The production of carrot seed relies on both pollination and isolation which can conflict.

Photo Courtesy of Beelife.org

Growers already spread out their fields by ~3 km but it’s not enough.

(Visscher and Seeley 1982; Beekman and Ratnieks 2000)

The poor conditions of a hybrid seed field forces bees to search for alternative forage.

Gaffney et al. 2011; Hendriksma and Shafir 2016; Zarchin et al. 2017

Kiwi growers in New Zealand also struggled to keeps bees on their crop.

Goodwin et al., 1994;Goodwin, 1986

Another study showed that adding pollen frames improved pollination when pollen patties did not.

Chabert et al., 2023

Hypothesis: Colonies with less open space will forage at a lower rate and remain closer to the hive.

Twohoneys bee co.

Colonies were given large amounts of empty comb or pollen and honey.

Pollen traps, activity monitors, and observation hives were used to track behavior.

The waggle dance is used to communicate the location and quality of a resource

Waggle Dance Game:

https://askabiologist.asu.edu/bee-dance-game/how-to-play.html

None of the treatments significantly impacted pollen collection

A

A

A

A

Overall foraging activity was only weakly impacted by our manipulations.

A

B

AB

AB

Hungry bees stay significantly closer to the fields.

C

A

D

A

What is causing these differences in foraging behavior?

Thanks�

References

• Beekman, M., & Ratnieks, F. L. W. (2000). Long-range foraging by the honey-bee, Apis mellifera L. Functional Ecology, 14(4), Article 4. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2435.2000.00443.x
• Calderone, N. W., & Johnson, B. R. (2002). The within-nest behaviour of honeybee pollen foragers in colonies with a high or low need for pollen. Animal Behaviour, 63(4), 749–758. https://doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2001.1957
• Camazine, S. (1993). The regulation of pollen foraging by honey bees: How foragers assess the colony’s need for pollen. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 32(4), 265–272. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00166516
• Chabert S, Morison N, Buffière M-J, et al. 2024. Supplementing honey bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) colonies with pollen increases their pollinating activity on nectariferous crops with anthers isolated from stigmas. Journal of Economic Entomology. 117(1):43–57. https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/toad222
• Couvillon, M. J., Riddell Pearce, F. C., Harris-Jones, E. L., Kuepfer, A. M., Mackenzie-Smith, S. J., Rozario, L. A., Schürch, R., & Ratnieks, F. L. W. (2012). Intra-dance variation among waggle runs and the design of efficient protocols for honey bee dance decoding. Biology Open, 1(5), Article 5. https://doi.org/10.1242/bio.20121099
• Fewell, J. H., & Winston, M. L. (1992). Colony state and regulation of pollen foraging in the honey bee, Apis mellifera L. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 30(6), 387–393. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00176173
• Gaffney, A., Allen, G. R., & Brown, P. H. (2011). Insect visitation to flowering hybrid carrot seed crops. New Zealand Journal of Crop and Horticultural Science, 39(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.1080/01140671.2010.526619
• Goodwin, R. M. (1986). Increased kiwifruit pollen collection after feeding sugar syrup to honey bees within their hive. New Zealand Journal of Experimental Agriculture, 14(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.1080/03015521.1986.10426125
• Goodwin, R. M., Houten, A. T., & Perry, J. H. (1994). Effect of feeding pollen substitutes to honey bee colonies used for kiwifruit pollination and honey production. New Zealand Journal of Crop and Horticultural Science, 22(4), Article 4. https://doi.org/10.1080/01140671.1994.9513858
• Hendriksma, H. P., & Shafir, S. (2016). Honey bee foragers balance colony nutritional deficiencies. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 70(4), Article 4. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-016-2067-5
• Marden, J. H., & Waddington, K. D. (1981). Floral choices by honeybees in relation to the relative distances to flowers. Physiological Entomology, 6(4), Article 4. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-3032.1981.tb00658.x
• Pereira, A. L. C., Taques, T. C., Valim, J. O. S., Madureira, A. P., & Campos, W. G. (2015). The management of bee communities by intercropping with flowering basil (Ocimum basilicum) enhances pollination and yield of bell pepper (Capsicum annuum). Journal of Insect Conservation, 19(3), 479–486. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-015-9768-3
• Quarrell, S. R., Weinstein, A. M., Hannah, L., Bonavia, N., del Borrello, O., Flematti, G. R., & Bohman, B. (2023). Critical Pollination Chemistry: Specific Sesquiterpene Floral Volatiles in Carrot Inhibit Honey Bee Feeding. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 71(43), 16079–16089. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jafc.3c03392
• Sagili, R. R., Breece, C. R., Simmons, R., & Borden, J. H. (2015). Potential of Honeybee Brood Pheromone to Enhance Foraging and Yield in Hybrid Carrot Seed. HortTechnology Hortte, 25(1), 98–104. https://doi.org/10.21273/HORTTECH.25.1.98
• Schulte, L. A., Niemi, J., Helmers, M. J., Liebman, M., Arbuckle, J. G., James, D. E., Kolka, R. K., O’Neal, M. E., Tomer, M. D., Tyndall, J. C., Asbjornsen, H., Drobney, P., Neal, J., Van Ryswyk, G., & Witte, C. (2017). Prairie strips improve biodiversity and the delivery of multiple ecosystem services from corn–soybean croplands. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(42), 11247–11252. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1620229114
• Schürch, R., Zwirner, K., Yambrick, B. J., Pirault, T., Wilson, J. M., & Couvillon, M. J. (2019). Dismantling Babel: Creation of a universal calibration for honey bee waggle dance decoding. Animal Behaviour, 150, 139–145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.01.016
• Seeley, T. D. (1989). Social foraging in honey bees: How nectar foragers assess their colony’s nutritional status. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 24(3), 181–199. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00292101
• Visscher, P. K., & Seeley, T. D. (1982). Foraging strategy of honeybee colonies in a temperate deciduous forest. Ecology (Durham), 63(6), Article 6. https://doi.org/10.2307/1940121
• Weidenmüller, A., & Tautz, J. (2002). In-Hive Behavior of Pollen Foragers (Apis mellifera) in Honey Bee Colonies Under Conditions of High and Low Pollen Need. Ethology, 108(3), 205–221. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1439-0310.2002.00759.x
• Wohleb, C. (2020, January 13). Isolating Seed Fields in the Columbia Basin of Washington. Columbia Basin Seed Field Representatives Association. https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/2082/2021/03/2021-CBSFRA-Seed-Field-Isolation-Packet.pdf
• Zarchin, S., Dag, A., Salomon, M., Hendriksma, H. P., & Shafir, S. (2017). Honey bees dance faster for pollen that complements colony essential fatty acid deficiency. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 71(12), Article 12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-017-2394-1
• Zhang, G., Murray, C. J., St. Clair, A. L., Cass, R. P., Dolezal, A. G., Schulte, L. A., Toth, A. L., & O’Neal, M. E. (2023). Native vegetation embedded in landscapes dominated by corn and soybean improves honey bee health and productivity. Journal of Applied Ecology, 60(6), 1032–1043. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14397

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