Honey bees dance faster for pollen that complements colony essential fatty acid deficiency

Zarchin, Shlomi; Dag, Arnon; Salomon, Mor; Hendriksma, Harmen P.; Shafir, Sharoni

doi:10.1007/s00265-017-2394-1

Cited by 47 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…The total number of waggle runs that a nectar dancer performs in a dance is correlated with her assessment of the profitability of the resource advertised [46]. This relationship has been demonstrated multiple times with artificial sugar-water feeders [50,51,52], but so far has not been demonstrated with pollen or pollen substitutes ( [53] but see [54]). Multiple studies have also shown that colonies tend to advertise sites at greater distances in order to find profitable nectar sources during dearth periods [27,40,42,55].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do honey bee (Apis mellifera) foragers recruit their nestmates to native forbs in reconstructed prairie habitats?

et al. 2020

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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.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do honey bee (Apis mellifera) foragers recruit their nestmates to native forbs in reconstructed prairie habitats?

et al. 2020

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“…Although honey bees do not necessarily prefer flowers with higher protein values [31,61], they may still be selective for pollen nutrition. The composition of spring pollen has important effects on honey bee health [62], and foragers may be able to balance the colony nutritional intake of amino and fatty acids [63,64]. Thus, we need to further test whether honey bees are selective for nutritional quality or if their intake reflects the local landscape distribution of nutrients.…”

Section: P:l Trends In Bee-flower Interactionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pollen Protein: Lipid Macronutrient Ratios May Guide Broad Patterns of Bee Species Floral Preferences

Vaudo

Tooker

Patch

et al. 2020

Insects

161

155

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Pollinator nutritional ecology provides insights into plant–pollinator interactions, coevolution, and the restoration of declining pollinator populations. Bees obtain their protein and lipid nutrient intake from pollen, which is essential for larval growth and development as well as adult health and reproduction. Our previous research revealed that pollen protein to lipid ratios (P:L) shape bumble bee foraging preferences among pollen host-plant species, and these preferred ratios link to bumble bee colony health and fitness. Yet, we are still in the early stages of integrating data on P:L ratios across plant and bee species. Here, using a standard laboratory protocol, we present over 80 plant species’ protein and lipid concentrations and P:L values, and we evaluate the P:L ratios of pollen collected by three bee species. We discuss the general phylogenetic, phenotypic, behavioral, and ecological trends observed in these P:L ratios that may drive plant–pollinator interactions; we also present future research questions to further strengthen the field of pollination nutritional ecology. This dataset provides a foundation for researchers studying the nutritional drivers of plant–pollinator interactions as well as for stakeholders developing planting schemes to best support pollinators.

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“…We further hypothesized that at least some pollen nutritional quality parameters would change with increasing surrounding plant species richness and/or floral diversity in larval provisions. Previous studies showed that bumblebees preferentially foraged on pollen with high P:F ratios [37,38] and that honeybees balanced fatty acid ratios [39,40], indicating that the protein and/or fat content of pollen might affect foraging choices across Apidae species. We, therefore, predicted that the protein to fat (P:F) ratio would increase with increasing floral diversity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Floral Species Richness Correlates with Changes in the Nutritional Quality of Larval Diets in a Stingless Bee

Trinkl

Kaluza

Wallace

et al. 2020

Insects

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Bees need food of appropriate nutritional quality to maintain their metabolic functions. They largely obtain all required nutrients from floral resources, i.e., pollen and nectar. However, the diversity, composition and nutritional quality of floral resources varies with the surrounding environment and can be strongly altered in human-impacted habitats. We investigated whether differences in plant species richness as found in the surrounding environment correlated with variation in the floral diversity and nutritional quality of larval provisions (i.e., mixtures of pollen, nectar and salivary secretions) composed by the mass-provisioning stingless bee Tetragonula carbonaria (Apidae: Meliponini). We found that the floral diversity of larval provisions increased with increasing plant species richness. The sucrose and fat (total fatty acid) content and the proportion and concentration of the omega-6 fatty acid linoleic acid decreased, whereas the proportion of the omega-3 fatty acid linolenic acid increased with increasing plant species richness. Protein (total amino acid) content and amino acid composition did not change. The protein to fat (P:F) ratio, known to affect bee foraging, increased on average by more than 40% from plantations to forests and gardens, while the omega-6:3 ratio, known to negatively affect cognitive performance, decreased with increasing plant species richness. Our results suggest that plant species richness may support T. carbonaria colonies by providing not only a continuous resource supply (as shown in a previous study), but also floral resources of high nutritional quality.

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Honey bees dance faster for pollen that complements colony essential fatty acid deficiency

Cited by 47 publications

References 76 publications

Do honey bee (Apis mellifera) foragers recruit their nestmates to native forbs in reconstructed prairie habitats?

Do honey bee (Apis mellifera) foragers recruit their nestmates to native forbs in reconstructed prairie habitats?

Pollen Protein: Lipid Macronutrient Ratios May Guide Broad Patterns of Bee Species Floral Preferences

Floral Species Richness Correlates with Changes in the Nutritional Quality of Larval Diets in a Stingless Bee

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