Honey bees do not displace foraging bumble bees on nectar-rich artificial flowers

Abstract

In an enclosed glasshouse with sucrose provisioned artificial flowers, we observed nectar-foraging bumble bees and honey bees under several resource conditions to determine potential for displacement. Different responses were displayed for varying resource treatments. Overall, bumble bees did not show reduced foraging in the presence of honey bees. When resources were reduced, bumble bees did not change their foraging behavior, whereas honey bees responded by decreasing their visitation rate. When a food resource of higher quality was introduced, bumble bee foragers shifted their foraging effort to the high-quality resources, whereas honey bees continued to forage on the lower quality resources they had been foraging on. We discuss these results by considering how the individual strategy of bumble bees compared with the colony-based strategy of honey bees may explain observed differences and highlight the potential advantages of each strategy in the natural environment.