Commercial beekeepers have been bringing their bees to the Northern Great Prairie (NGP) for many decades due to the availability of nectar and pollen-rich plants in abundant grasslands.
Since 1985, many millions of acres of restored grassland have provided important honey bee forage consisting of mixed forbs through conservation programs administered by the Farm Service Agency and the Natural Resource Conservation Service. However, escalating values of agricultural crops, especially those for bio-energy has reduced the willingness of landowners to enroll or re-enroll in conservation programs such as the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). As conservation acreage area has declined, there has been an increasing need to improve the habitat for honey bees and other pollinators on federal conservation program lands.
We are determining the plant species being utilized by honey bees to improve pollinator forage on United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) conservation lands. This study provides an empirical evaluation of floral resources used by bees, and the relative contribution of those resources to honey bee health and productivity. Products resulting from this study include an evaluation of cost-effective seeding mix options that can be used to enhance honey production and improvement of the health and fitness of honey bee colonies on USDA program lands. Furthermore, we will conduct an assessment of honey bee habitat and forage quality for current USDA programs and practices. Our efforts will be replicated in multiple states throughout the NGP to address regional difference in plant community composition and honey bee diets.
Objective:
- Determine what plants are utilized most often for pollen
With our data we will evaluate planting mix options to improve forage quality for managed honey bee colonies on USDA conservation stewardship lands in the NGP.
Using colony monitoring devices to evaluate the impacts of land use and nutritional value of forage on honey bee health
A comparison of honey bee-collected pollen from working agricultural lands using light microscopy and ITS metabarcoding
Taxonomic characterization of honey bee (Apis mellifera) pollen foraging based on non-overlapping paired-end sequencing of nuclear ribosomal loci
- Overview
Commercial beekeepers have been bringing their bees to the Northern Great Prairie (NGP) for many decades due to the availability of nectar and pollen-rich plants in abundant grasslands.
Since 1985, many millions of acres of restored grassland have provided important honey bee forage consisting of mixed forbs through conservation programs administered by the Farm Service Agency and the Natural Resource Conservation Service. However, escalating values of agricultural crops, especially those for bio-energy has reduced the willingness of landowners to enroll or re-enroll in conservation programs such as the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). As conservation acreage area has declined, there has been an increasing need to improve the habitat for honey bees and other pollinators on federal conservation program lands.
We are determining the plant species being utilized by honey bees to improve pollinator forage on United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) conservation lands. This study provides an empirical evaluation of floral resources used by bees, and the relative contribution of those resources to honey bee health and productivity. Products resulting from this study include an evaluation of cost-effective seeding mix options that can be used to enhance honey production and improvement of the health and fitness of honey bee colonies on USDA program lands. Furthermore, we will conduct an assessment of honey bee habitat and forage quality for current USDA programs and practices. Our efforts will be replicated in multiple states throughout the NGP to address regional difference in plant community composition and honey bee diets.
Objective:
- Determine what plants are utilized most often for pollen
With our data we will evaluate planting mix options to improve forage quality for managed honey bee colonies on USDA conservation stewardship lands in the NGP.
Hive manager pulling out a frame to check on the honey beesHive manager pulling out a frame to check on the honey bees. - Publications
Using colony monitoring devices to evaluate the impacts of land use and nutritional value of forage on honey bee health
Colony monitoring devices used to track and assess the health status of honey bees are becoming more widely available and used by both beekeepers and researchers. These devices monitor parameters relevant to colony health at frequent intervals, often approximating real time. The fine-scale record of hive condition can be further related to static or dynamic features of the landscape, such as weathA comparison of honey bee-collected pollen from working agricultural lands using light microscopy and ITS metabarcoding
Taxonomic identification of pollen has historically been accomplished via light microscopy but requires specialized knowledge and reference collections, particularly when identification to lower taxonomic levels is necessary. Recently, next-generation sequencing technology has been used as a cost-effective alternative for identifying bee-collected pollen; however, this novel approach has not beenTaxonomic characterization of honey bee (Apis mellifera) pollen foraging based on non-overlapping paired-end sequencing of nuclear ribosomal loci
Identifying plant taxa that honey bees (Apis mellifera) forage upon is of great apicultural interest, but traditional methods are labor intensive and may lack resolution. Here we evaluate a high-throughput genetic barcoding approach to characterize trap-collected pollen from multiple North Dakota apiaries across multiple years. We used the Illumina MiSeq platform to generate sequence scaffolds fro