Social bees go the extra mile for food, study shows
SOCIAL bees travel greater distances for food than their solitary counterparts, reveals new research.
The discovery could help create effective conservation strategies for threatened bees and plants, say scientists.
Bristol University researchers discovered that social bee species – such as honeybees and bumblebees – have larger foraging ranges.
Their findings, published in the journal Current Biology, show that social bees venture further for pollen and nectar.
The team believe that social bees travel longer distances as a result of several traits which include body size, colony size, communication and flower constancy.
Study lead author Dr Christoph Grueter, from Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences, explained that larger bees – such as the bumblebee – have greater foraging ranges.
He said: “They have bigger wings and can fly faster so it’s easier for them to cover more ground.
“Bees from greater colonies will experience more competition from their sisters if they stay close to the nest so they need to travel further to avoid congestion.
“Many social bees have evolved different kinds of communication methods. This allows foragers that have found a highly rewarding flower species to tell their sisters about their discovery. As a result, more bees will have a preference for the same kind of flowers.
“Furthermore social bees tend to visit one type of flower during a foraging trip.
“Flower constancy means that bees ignore viable alternative options as they focus only on a subset of all available flowers, forcing them to travel further to find their favoured flower.”
Dr Grueter says that as bees, and especially social bees, are amongst the most important pollinators, while also being under threat, the findings have implications for their protection and the conservation of endangered plants which they pollinate.
He said: “Our findings suggest that solitary bees might be most affected by human-caused habitat loss and fragmentation because they will struggle more to find suitable food sources at greater distances.
“Social bees might be particularly important for the protection of endangered plant species that exist only in isolated patches.
“Since many social bee species can be kept in hives, we could use our understanding of their foraging ranges in targeted ways to aid the pollination of plants in remote areas.”
The research team carried out the study during lockdown, using coding to build a simulation model in combination with published literature to find the existing data on bee foraging ranges of 90 bee species.
Now Dr Grueter plans to study and confirm the findings in the bees’ natural environment and look at which ones are most and least affected by habitat loss and fragmentation.
He added: “Since there will be a big international push for reforestation and rewilding, this will help us understand how reforestation and rewilding projects might affect and be affected by different pollinator groups.”