Nutritional status of honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) workers across an agricultural land-use gradient.

ABSTRACT: Land use, habitat, and forage quality have emerged as critical factors influencing the health, productivity, and survival of honey bee colonies. However, characterization of the mechanistic relationship between differential land-use conditions and ultimate outcomes for honey bee colonies has been elusive. We assessed the physiological health of individual worker honey bees in colonies stationed across a gradient of agricultural land use to ask whether indicators of nutritional physiology including glycogen, total sugar, lipids, and protein were associated with land-use conditions over the growing season and colony population size the subsequent spring during almond pollination. Across the observed land-use gradient, we found that September lipid levels related to growing-season land use, w

SUBMITTER: Smart MD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6838345 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature