FORAGING LINES:Puzzling Pollen:Deciphering where honey bees forage using pollen analysis

摘要

MY name is Taylor Steele, and I am currently a Master's student in Dr. Margaret Couvillon's lab at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, on the western side of the state of Virginia, located on the eastern coast of the United States. My research is focused onhoney bee foraging dynamics in orchard and fruit crops, primarily apples, in Northern Virginia just outside the city of Winchester within the Shenandoah Valley, a geographic and cultural region of western Virginia. The landscape is largely dominated by surrounding apple orchards of Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Rome, Stayman, Gala, Winesap, York, Granny Smith, Jonathan, Fuji, and Ginger Gold, along with grapes, cherries, and pumpkins. The primary purpose of my research is to gain a better understanding of how bees are using this landscape to feed themselves. Ultimately, we hope to improve the quality of foraging habitats and to better understand the relationship between apple pollen and nectar to the bees' diet and, conversely, the importance of honey bee pollination to apples. To do this, we have been decoding honey bee waggle dances to know where honey bees are foraging and recruiting (Couvillon, Schiirch, & Ratnieks, 2014). However, today I want to discuss another aspect of this research, whichis to analyse pollen samples, mainly to positively determine whether our bees are visiting apple blossoms during bloom, but also to know what they are foraging on. This, as we discovered, is easier said than done.