Analysis of native bee populations in honey bee predicted landscapes

Tuesday, November 15, 2022

1:30 PM – 1:42 PM PT

Location: Vancouver Convention Centre, Meeting Room 213

Presenting Author(s)

RO

Robert Ostrom

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Woodbridge, Virginia

Co-Author(s)

Margaret J. Couvillon

Assistant Professor, Pollinator Biology and Ecology
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, Virginia
CC

Chad Campbell

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Roanoke, Virginia
BO

Bradley David Ohlinger

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, Virginia
ST

Sally Taylor

Associate Professor
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Smithfield, Virginia
SM

Sean Malone

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Suffolk, Virginia
JW

James Wilson

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, Virginia
MO

Megan E. O'Rourke

National Program Leader
USDA-NIFA
Lees Summit, Missouri
RS

Roger Schurch

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, Virginia

Pollinator health is of particular interest to the agricultural community and public, in part due to ecosystem services. For example, bees alone provide up to $577 billion yearly in pollination services. Research is increasingly revealing the importance of native bee (non-honey bee) pollination services, however there is a major challenge in assessing native bee population health. This is in part due to their predominantly solitary lives, as opposed to the eusocial, hive dwelling honey bee. In this project, we explore using the European Honey bee, Apis mellifera L., as a novel bioindicator for pollinator landscape health. Honey bees recruit nest mates for foraging by communicating resource distance and direction using the waggle dance. We observed, decoded, and mapped waggle dances in Suffolk, Blacksburg, and Winchester Virginia, each unique landscape types, and created heat maps of these dances to understand the frequency of recruitment for areas around their hives. We then surveyed the native bee populations using bee bowls, blue vane traps, and hand nets across plots honey bees both frequently and infrequently recruited fellow workers for foraging. We hypothesize that we will be able to relate native bee species richness, abundance, and diversity in the landscape to honey bees’ waggle dance frequency.

In this talk, we discuss the trends we find from the 2021 Summer catch of 58 species and 753 specimen, including the four species which made up over 50% of total catch; Melissodes bimaculatus, Lasioglossum bruneri, Bombus impatiens, and Ceratina calcarata.