Competition between honey bees and wild bees and the role of nesting resources in a nature reserve

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

The European honey bee exploits floral resources efficiently and may therefore compete with solitary wild bees. Hence, conservationists and bee keepers are debating about the consequences of beekeeping for the conservation of wild bees in nature reserves. We observed flower-visiting bees on flowers of Calluna vulgaris in sites differing in the distance to the next honey-bee hive and in sites with hives present and absent in the Lüneburger Heath, Germany. Additionally, we counted wild bee ground nests in sites that differ in their distance to the next hive and wild bee stem nests and stem-nesting bee species in sites with hives present and absent. We did not observe fewer honey bees or higher wild bee flower visits in sites with different distances to the next hive (up to 1,229 m). However, wild bees visited fewer flowers and honey bee visits increased in sites containing honey-bee hives and in sites containing honey-bee hives we found fewer stem-nesting bee species. The reproductive success, measured as number of nests, was not affected by distance to honey-bee hives or their presence but by availability and characteristics of nesting resources. Our results suggest that beekeeping in the Lüneburg Heath can affect the conservation of stem-nesting bee species richness but not the overall reproduction either of stem-nesting or of ground-nesting bees. Future experiments need control sites with larger distances than 500 m to hives. Until more information is available, conservation efforts should forgo to enhance honey bee stocking rates but enhance the availability of nesting resources.
Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Insect Conservation
Volume17
Issue number6
Pages (from-to)1275-1283
Number of pages9
ISSN1366-638X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 12.2013

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. How can employment relations in global value networks be managed towards social responsibility?
  2. The impact of goal specificity and goal type on learning outcome and cognitive load
  3. A sliding mode control using an extended Kalman filter as an observer for stimulus-responsive polymer fibres as actuator
  4. Constructing strangeness
  5. Anisotropy and mechanical properties of dissimilar Al additive manufactured structures generated by multi-layer friction surfacing
  6. New product development and flawed cause-and-effect relations in strategy maps
  7. 3DMIN – Challenges and Interventions in Design, Development and Dissemination of New Musical Instruments.
  8. Predictive mapping of plant species and communities using GIS and Landsat data in a southern Mongolian mountain range
  9. Fruit Detection and Yield Mass Estimation from a UAV Based RGB Dense Cloud for an Apple Orchard
  10. Telomere length is a strong predictor of foraging behavior in a long-lived seabird
  11. Generating dispatching rules for semiconductor manufacturing to minimize weighted tardiness
  12. Reconfiguring Desecuritization
  13. Material system analysis
  14. Health State Valuation Methods and Reference Points
  15. The Measurement of Grip-Strength in Automobiles
  16. Using a decoupling technique to identify the magnetic flux in a permanent magnet synchronous motor
  17. Modality in Nigerian Senate Debates: Patterned co-occurrence and stratgic-pragmatic functions
  18. The State and Healthcare
  19. The Multiple Self Objection to the Prudential Lifespan Account
  20. The new European database for chemicals of concern
  21. Inequality in the Transition from Primary to Secondary School
  22. Energy-aware system design for autonomous wireless sensor nodes
  23. Discussion report part 1
  24. Keep calm and follow the news
  25. Organisationen hacken
  26. Evidence-Based Entrepreneurship
  27. Report on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the United States in PISA 2012 mathematics
  28. Integrated Concept for the Selection of Process-improving and Competence-increasing Methods for the Shopfloor