Honey bee success predicted by landscape composition in Ohio, USA
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Author and article information
Abstract
Foraging honey bees (Apis mellifera L.) routinely travel as far as several kilometers from their hive in the process of collecting nectar and pollen from floral patches within the surrounding landscape. Since the availability of floral resources at the landscape scale is a function of landscape composition, apiculturists have long recognized that landscape composition is a critical determinant of honey bee colony success. Nevertheless, we are aware of no published studies that present quantitative data relating colony success metrics to local landscape composition. We employed a beekeeper survey in conjunction with GIS-based landscape analysis to model colony success as a function of landscape composition in the State of Ohio, USA, a region characterized by intensive cropland, urban development, deciduous forest, and grassland. We found that colony food accumulation and wax production were positively related to cropland and negatively related to forest and grassland, a pattern that may be driven by the abundance of dandelion and clovers in agricultural areas compared to forest or mature grassland. Colony food accumulation was also negatively correlated with the ratio of urban:crop area in sites dominated by urban and agricultural land cover, which does not support the popular opinion that the urban environment is more favorable to honey bees than cropland.
Cite this as
2015. Honey bee success predicted by landscape composition in Ohio, USA. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e795v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.795v1note This preprint is not peer-reviewed. You may wish to reference the subsequent peer-reviewed version of this article.
Author comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
Sections
Supplemental Information
S1: Spring survey
Full spring survey questionnaire filled out by beekeepers in our study.
S2: Fall survey
Full fall survey questionnaire filled out by beekeepers in our study.
Additional Information
Competing Interests
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
Author Contributions
Douglas B Sponsler conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables.
Reed M Johnson conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Human Ethics
The following information was supplied relating to ethical approvals (i.e., approving body and any reference numbers):
1. The Ohio State University Office of Responsible Research Practices
2. Approval numbers: Protocol # 2012E0136 (2012 year of study), Protocol # 2013E0012
Funding
This study was funded by the Ohio State Beekeepers' Association. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
