The bumblebee Bombus ardens ardens (Hymenoptera: Apidae) visits white clover in orchards before Oriental persimmon blooms

Abstract

Flowers on the ground of orchards can provide substantial resources for wild pollinators of orchard trees. Few studies, however, have examined the relative importance of groundcover flowers to orchard pollination by analyzing pollen on the body surface of pollinators. Oriental persimmon trees bloom within the longer blooming period of white clover, which is occasionally found as a flowering plant on the ground of persimmon orchards in Japan. The present study compared the insect species assemblage collected on persimmon flowers with that on clover. Before persimmon bloomed, Bombus ardens ardens and Apis cerana japonica were the major visitors of clover flowers. Once persimmon bloomed, the former was the most abundant bee that visited persimmon flowers over the flowering period. Apis mellifera was captured only on clover flowers. We found numerous clover pollen grains on the body surface of bumblebees captured on persimmon flowers, but far fewer persimmon pollen grains on bees that visited clover. These findings show that B. ardens ardens utilized the clover flowers under the orchards before persimmon bloomed.

Habitat preference influences response to changing agricultural landscapes in two long-horned bees

“…In areas where both bee species coexisted in abundance, E. nipponensis frequently visited woody plants and shallow dish-shaped flowers in addition to legume flowers (GSH, personal observation). Similar flower use patterns of both Eucera species were recorded in kaki persimmon orchards (Nikkeshi et al 2021). Thus, our results do not support the existence of strong competition for floral resources between both species.…”