Exploring variation in pesticide contamination, nutritional quality, and diversity of pollen collected by honey bees in Wisconsin landscapes

Poor nutrition is one of the main drivers of recent bee declines and colony losses. Research has shown that honey bee colony health and outcomes can be improved by increasing the nutritional quality of the bees’ diet. One way for beekeepers to improve the quality of their bees’ diet is to place the hives in resource-rich landscapes. BeeScape, a tool developed at Penn State University that uses landcover-based models to calculate an index of floral resources availability and potential pesticide exposure based on a specific location, can help beekeepers determine where in the landscape to place their hives. But the value of this tool for assessing resource availability and diet quality at a specific location in Wisconsin has not been tested and is unknown. Therefore, we investigated the utility of BeeScape to predict the nutritional quality of pollen and how this translates to hive performance across a geographically diverse area in Wisconsin. To do this, we collected pollen from honey bee hives and assessed it for pollen diversity, protein and lipid content, and pesticide contamination. We then correlated pollen quality to metrics of hive success (e.g., hive weight gain, fat content of individual bees). We will complete our data collection for this study in fall 2023. The findings from this study will help inform Wisconsin beekeeper decision making regarding hive placement by better understanding how the surrounding landscape influences their hive health and how well the BeeScape tool predicts hive health and productivity.