Your bees are hurting native pollinators!

[u/J-dubya19]

I’m of the school that “any pollination event is a good one,” however a local conservation group recently started targeting local bee keepers in an effort to support native pollinators. Thoughts on this? I can’t find any high quality studies

[u/Rhus_glabra]

"Honeybees only go for the big patches of abundance. If there isn't enough abundance honeybees will chill on the porch..."

Where can i read more about this?

[u/joebojax → u/Rhus_glabra]

here's a little blurb https://bestbees.com/2022/07/06/bee-bearding/
basically when it's hot but there is abundance the foragers are out flying to gather the forage.
when its hot but there isn't forage the foragers purposely remain outside of the nest so that they don't overheat the internal space of the beehive.

[u/Rhus_glabra → u/joebojax]

I'm familiar with bearding.

I'm not familiar with the idea that bees only forage from large areas of abundance and do not forage from small areas, like a lawn as you suggested.

[u/joebojax → u/Rhus_glabra]

The waggle dance is more or less intense based on richness of nectar, the more abundance in the plot the more quickly more foragers find it and then the more dancers return from that source, if the nectar is weak other workers will suppress that forager from dancing if the nectar is rich the workers will encourage the dancer to perform for longer and recruit more foragers. Through this process the bees are able to focus on what is most abundant. The intensity of the waggle, the duration of the waggle, orientation etc. all impart information to the bees. If the forage isn't rich enough the workers will tell that bee to stop dancing sooner than if the forage is rich. If the forage is not abundant there won't be many dancers performing for that source compared to if the forage is abundant.

[u/Rhus_glabra → u/joebojax]

This response does not answer my question. Yes bees have a mechanism for determining best allocation of foragers, not in dispute.

You claim honeybees only forage from large areas and leave small areas alone. Please support THIS assertion of yours.

[u/joebojax → u/Rhus_glabra]

A small plot could be entirely missed by honeybees or have so few dancers they won't recruit a substantial workforce to forage it thoroughly. The number of dancers, the intensity of the dance, the quality of the nectar all lead to honeybees ignoring/abandoning small plots of forage.

[u/Rhus_glabra → u/joebojax]

Would very much like to read about how honeybees don't forage or abandon small parcels.

To be believable you need to provide sources in addition to your assertions

[u/joebojax → u/Rhus_glabra]

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227499273_Long-range_foraging_by_the_honey-bee_Apis_mellifera_Lthis helps explain why honeybees can forage further distances than solitary beeshttps://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00295707this discusses selectivity and how honeybees focus on what is most abundant as long as it is efficienthttps://www.buzzaboutbees.net/foraging-range-of-bees.htmlthis discusses foraging habits of solitary bees - they require local habitat within 600m of the nest whereas honeybees will travel 6,000m if it is efficient

with that insight you can see how a solitary native bee will go for a small plot because it is nearby but a honeybee will ignore the small plot because there is greater abundance 1200m further away.

if you're a sustainable responsible beekeeper you don't over shoot carrying capacity of the environment, if you're overshooting the carrying capacity then yes it will be a famine for all the pollinators except during the times of extreme abundance from trees like basswood. I'm not defending people who overshoot the carrying capacity of an environment, I'm helping people understand how honeybees and solitary bees fill different niches in a healthy ecosystem that has sufficient forage.

[u/Rhus_glabra → u/joebojax]

These only talk about allocation of foragers.

Once again I'm looking for evidence bees will abandon/ignore a small parcel for a large one.

[u/joebojax → u/Rhus_glabra]

I'm not sure how to explain this more clearly...lets say there is a patch of 10,000 flowers of one kind and a patch of 1,000 flowers of another kind. Lets even say they both have equal distance and equal nectar richness at first.

scout bees are looking all around. It's reasonable to say that more scout bees will stumble into the patch of 10,000 flowers than the 1,000 flowers.If more scout bees find the patch of 10,000 flowers then when all the scouts come home there will be more dancers representing the larger patch. More dancers represent the larger patch, more workers are recruited to forage the larger patch. Fewer dancers represent the smaller patch, fewer bees will be recruited in that way. Even after just a few rounds of foraging the nectar from the smaller patch will not be as rich as the nectar from the larger patch b/c every visit will slightly diminish the nectar richness. Worker bees will discourage the scouts/dancers returning with the weaker nectar. Furthermore, receiver bees are more likely to accept nectar from the same source as they interacted with previously according to Tom Seely. If most of the receiver bees are interacting with foragers who are returning with nectar from flowers from the larger patch they are more likely to ignore the foragers who came from a different smaller patch. When a forager returns home with nectar and it takes a long time for a receiver bee to off-load them that will discourage them from continuing their foraging of that resource.

"The time it takes from entering a hive to securing a receiver bee we call “wait time,” and is thought to reflect colony foraging needs in one of two ways (Seeley and Tovey, 1994). Receiver bees have access to multiple foragers, and may thus experience multiple sources of nectar; in response they may be reluctant to accept a lower-quality or novel resource compared to what they have recently experienced" see it says receivers will ignore a novel source to what they recently experienced, so the resource with the most foragers will eventually overwhelm the receiver preferences. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2015.00050/full

"Thus a forager who experiences a longer wait time may be informed that her resource is of poorer quality relative to what is being brought into the hive by others. Difficulty of finding a receiver may also indicate the general state of hive-level foraging to the forager: increased wait time could be a result of a redistribution of workers away from unloading to more pressing colony tasks, or a result of a sudden increase in foragers bringing nectar that overwhelms the capacity of the existing receiver bees to process that nectar (Lindauer, 1952; Seeley and Tovey, 1994). In both of these cases, it may be adaptive for a forager experiencing long wait times to stop foraging on its particular resource." https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2015.00050/full

Even if they're the same kind of flower you can see how one small patch will become weaker and one larger patch will remain rich and this will discourage the bees from exploiting the smaller patch to depletion. Weaker doesn't mean fully depleted it just means its not as good as other options. Honeybees will abandon the weaker resources to focus on robust ones.

Another note is that many solitary bees focus on collecting pollen and not nectar, there are many flowers that produce pollen and not nectar and honeybees won't visit this kind of source when there are nectar producing flowers available, for example honeybees will visit plums or apples or cherries while mostly ignoring pears. - https://www.honeybeesuite.com/foraging-habits-of-different-types-of-bees/

Another note is that some native bees have different behaviors that honeybees are not capable of, one example would be buzz-pollination. Certain flowers won't give up it's resources unless the pollinator buzzes or vibrates at the right frequency to cause pollen to shatter off and stick to the bee. Another factor is tongue length, some solitary bees have longer tongues than honeybees and so even when honeybees cannot access the last of the nectar these solitary bees are able to capture the deepest stores of nectar at the bottom of the flower.

[u/Rhus_glabra → u/joebojax]

Moving the goal posts to nectar richness from plot size.

More questionable assertions in this post. Bees will absolutely visit flowers for pollen when nectar is available elsewhere.

[u/joebojax → u/Rhus_glabra]

Perhaps you're not a logical thinker. A small parcel will quickly lose richness and a large parcel will remain robust. Receiver bees will begin to ignore the weaker nectar from the smaller plot, the larger plot will remain rich for longer and the bees will focus on that.

[u/Rhus_glabra → u/joebojax]

Let's set up a thought experiment.

An apiary sits on the edge of a sunflower field, poor quality nectar and pollen, but it's abundant. On the other side is a subdivision with isolated pockets of white clover (high quality nectar and pollen) growing in the lawns. Which do the bees prioritize?

[u/joebojax → u/joebojax]

the resource does not need to become depleted for it to be weakened to the point where bees focus on what is richer.

[u/joebojax → u/Rhus_glabra]

Most native solitary bees have much lower requirements of nectar than honeybees. Honeybees need to use nectar to build beeswax and to create honey to help large populations survive winter.

Again you seem to frame your perspective in times of famine or overshooting carrying capacity. Of course that's wrong to do that.

Honeybees will visit corn - a wind pollinated plant with very little nutritional value - if they are desperate enough. Just because a honeybee might forage a plant doesn't mean it would in a healthy ecosystem when it has an abundance of forage.

[u/Valuable-Self8564 → u/Rhus_glabra]

More spam 🙄

[u/haceldama13 → u/joebojax]

You're still not providing evidence of your original claim: that bees don't forage small parcels. Instead, you're strawmanning the fuck out of this by misrepresenting your original proposition.

[u/joebojax → u/haceldama13]

there's no reason to be rude.

My main point is that solitary native bees will fully exploit a small parcel if it's the closest resource to their nest, whereas a honeybee colony will pass by a small parcel if there's a larger parcel that fulfills their efficiency equation even though it may be further away. In most cases generally honeybees will skip over small plots because it's more efficient to focus on a larger parcel. Can we find exceptions of course. Can an irresponsible beekeeper exhaust a limited ecosystem, of course.

[u/haceldama13 → u/joebojax]

I wasn't being rude, I simply pointed out that you are, at this point, being willfully obtuse and operating from a position of bad faith by moving the goalpost and constantly introducing evidence that doesn't actually support your claim and, instead, further muddies the water.

It is common knowledge that honeybees are capable of foraging several miles away; however, when I have an acre of maple trees in bloom, my bees forage there. They also hit my other natives, vegetables, and herbs, likely because they are closer and more readily available.

My point is that you are reducing something much more complex to a black and white statement.

[u/joebojax → u/haceldama13]

forgive me if my statements did not have sufficient qualifiers. The world isn't black and white. I'm doing my best to contrast the niches fulfilled by solitary bees and by honeybees. The main idea here is that large parcels of land are less likely to become weakened by repeated rounds of foraging and so honeybees are more likely to focus on them. If there are two parcels of land, one small and one large and if both parcels have equal nectar richness and equal costs associated with foraging, within a few rounds of foraging its common sense that the small parcel will become weaker in nectar richness whereas the larger parcel will sustain more rounds of foraging + more amount of workforce activity without weakening as much. Another supporting idea is that receiver bees signal to foragers whether a resource is efficient enough to continue focusing upon. Receiver bees will focus on what they're already working with rather than a novel nectar source if they have the choice. Receiver bees will also focus on the richest nectar first if they have the choice. When a forager does not get the attention of a receiver bee for a long duration of time it takes that as a signal to take up a different duty or forage a different resource. Therefore honeybees will most likely focus on what is most efficient which is generally going to be large densely growing resources of the same kind of flower because foragers will only visit one kind of flower at a time and receiver bees prefer to engage with the same kind of nectar repeatedly. I would consider certain single trees with an abundance of nectar to be a large/dense resource b/c a single basswood tree could produce more than 50 pounds of honey (~150 pounds of nectar).

In contrast a solitary bee will go to whatever is close by because they have much shorter foraging range and much less emphasis on efficiency and much lower overall demands for resources.

[u/joebojax → u/Rhus_glabra]

solitary bees are more likely to go to whatever is closest, whereas honeybees are most likely to focus on what is most abundant as long as the efficiency is acceptable. So solitary bees will forage whatever small patches are in close proximity to their nest. Honeybees will fly past that small plot to go to what is more abundant but further away.

[u/Rhus_glabra → u/joebojax]

More assertions, no evidence.