Honey Bees Experience Forage Opportunities and Pesticide Exposure in a Row Crop Environment

Row crop production represents the dominant use of arable land in the United States and worldwide. There is a large body of literature on the risk, and consequences, to pollinators of pesticide use in these systems. The contribution of row crops, self-pollinating and wind-pollinated plants traditionally believed not to feed pollinators, to honey bee colony nutrition is an important consideration. Cotton, corn, soybean, and peanut flower during months where alternate forage may be lacking in the environment. We used the honey bee waggle dance, which allows us to map where bees have foraged, and high-throughput sequencing of returned pollen samples to determine when, and in what amount, bees prefer to forage in crop production fields. We also characterized insecticide exposure by quantifying residues in the pollen. We conducted this experiment over two years in a largely agricultural landscape containing multiple cropping systems. We will specifically address foraging in cotton and soybean during bloom (Jul-Sept).