After bees are moved out, local bees populations can rebound

When hosting bees are introduced into new areas, honey bees have the potential to affect the population of local bees, but a study led by researchers at Penn State University shows that under certain conditions, local bees will be if beekeepers are removed, Can rebound.

The study was published in Journal of Insect Science The effects of migratory beekeeping – the practice of transferring bee colonies to different locations throughout the year – on local bee colonies.

The researchers found that when the hosted bees were transferred to a region, the population of native bees decreased in abundance and diversity. However, where foods were kept for years and then removed, native bee populations increased again in total and species diversity.

Margarita López-uribe, professor of early vocational vocational sciences at the College of Agricultural Sciences at Lorenzo L. Langstroth, and this article’s co-author, these populations are recovered .

“Since these sites rebounded only a year after removing the apiary, this suggests that the population has temporarily decreased due to local bees displacement, not because they disappeared,” she said. “These bees are also likely to be able to rebound because of the landscape. The flowers are abundant, and the use of agriculture and pesticides is minimal.”

However, she added that results may vary in areas where bees have lower flower diversity and space and where colonies of hosting honey bees are denser.

According to the researchers, insect populations are declining worldwide, which can be attributed to many human activities, including changing insect habitats and the introduction of non-native species. Although these alien species sometimes have a positive impact on crop plants, they can also compete with native species for resources, such as bees vs native bees for flowers.

Because bees are very common, researchers say it is difficult to design studies that study this competition between bees and other bees. In this study, they traveled to the Qinghai Ditian Plateau in China, where bees do not live in the wild and exist only due to migrating trustee apiary farms, which include about 60 to 100 colonies.

“The bees are mostly preserved in the Sichuan lowlands, but in the summer, the bees become too hot,” Lopez Ruribe said. “So for the past four decades, beekeepers have been transporting colonies to higher altitudes where the colonies are cooler and have a lot of flower resources. Pesticide exposure is also very little because there is no agriculture there.”

Initially, the researchers planned to analyze bee populations at two types of locations: a bee that currently preserves bees, but never preserves them. When the festival was held in one of the areas where migrating apiary farms had been previously held, a third unforeseen third was added. This allowed the team to study areas that had previously been preserved for decades before being deleted.

The researchers selected two spots from each type of site to collect samples and collected bees on each plot over three days. The bees are then classified and identified as honey bees or local bees.

After analyzing the data, they found that the number of local bees was the lowest number for places that currently include bees and were higher in places where bees were previously or never had bees.

These reductions specifically affected the major native bee species in the region: Andrena sp. 3. A bee. While local bee populations rebounded at the site where bee colonies were removed last year, Andrena sp abundance. 3 Keep it low.

The researchers also found that the phylogenetic diversity of native bees, which measures the evolutionary history between a group of species, is still higher in areas that currently include bees and previously included them. The increase in phylogenetic diversity may be due to less Andrena sp. 3 Allow other species to obtain limited areas for feeding or nesting.

López-uribe said the study was conducted in China, saying the findings could apply to many other areas around the world.

“In our study, we’re talking about a maximum of 100 colonies per apiary that is moved, which in comparison, a total of 1.5 million colonies are shipped to California every year by comparison .” “But in areas where fewer colonies are moved, the results may be similar.”

Overall, the researchers say the findings show that while the introduction of custodial bees reduces the richness of native bees, the long-term effects may depend on how many honey bees colonies were introduced and how long they exist. Future studies can investigate the impact of these honey bees density and duration on local bee abundance, community composition and pollination services across multiple seasons.

Anthony Vaudo, Department of Forest Services; Michael Orr, Staatliches Museum fürnaturkunde Stuttgart; Chinese Academy of Sciences List Week; Chao-Dong Zhu, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Mianyang Normal University Junpeng MU also co-authored the study.

USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture PEN04716, Penn State University Lorenzo L. Langstroth Endowment, President of Chinese Academy of Sciences International Scholarship Initiative, China National National Zoological Systems and Evolution, China Natural Science Foundation and USDA Forest Service (USDA Forest Service) helped support the study.