[Pollinator] another paper on competition in bees

[David Inouye]

  J. H. Cane and V. J. Tepedino. 2016. Gauging the effect of honey bee pollen collection on native bee communities. Conservation Letters 10.1111/conl.12263:6pp.

Abstract: Experimental demonstration of direct exploitative competition between foraging honey bees and native bees in wildlands has proven elusive, due to problems of experimental design, scale, and context-dependence. We propose a different approach that translates floral resources collected by a honey bee colony into progeny equivalents of an average solitary bee. Such a metric is needed by public land managers confronting migratory beekeeper demands for insecticide-free, convenient, resource-rich habitats for summering. We calculate that, from June-August, a strong colony gathers as much pollen as could produce 100,000 progeny of an average solitary bee. Analogous to the animal unit month (AUM) for livestock, a hive unit month (HUM) is therefore 33,000 native bee progeny. By this calculation, a 40-hive apiary residing on wildlands for 3 months collects the pollen equivalent of four million wild bees. We introduce a rapid assessment metric to gauge stocking of honey bees, and briefly highlight alternative strategies to provide quality pasture for honey bees with minimal impact on native bees.


-- 
Dr. David W. Inouye
Professor Emeritus
Department of Biology
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742-4415
inouye at umd.edu

Principal Investigator
Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory
PO Box 519
Crested Butte, CO 81224