Abstract
Common eastern bumble bees (Bombus impatiens Cresson) play an essential role in pollinating lowbush blueberries (LB) in northern Quebec, but their costs and the suboptimal weather conditions during pollination highlight the need to find appropriate hive management strategies. A study was conducted in a LB field in Saguenay (Québec, Canada) focusing on the effects of hive insulation (I+ and I−), heating (H+ and H−), and placement in a single-row tree line windbreak. High-definition time-lapse cameras monitored hive activities and bumble bee foraging behaviors. We found that the conventional management of placing hives in full sun without insulation (I−) resulted in the lowest levels of bumble bee foraging activity and overall hive traffic. Placing bumble bee hives against a windbreak resulted in the highest numbers of bees entering hives with pollen (+156%), leaving hives (+69%), and overall hive traffic (+76%). Insulating hives with extruded polystyrene foam gave intermediate results, with a 105% increase in foraging activity compared to the conventional management method (I−H−). Interestingly, placing hives on seedling mats to maintain colony temperatures above 15 °C (H+) tended to decrease foraging activity and overall hive traffic. Our results show that strategic placement of bumble bee hives against windbreaks can significantly increase the activity of Bombus workers from those hives and can be used as a simple, low-cost, and efficient bumble bee hive management method by LB growers.
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Claims 6
Claim · model-written summary
Placing bumble bee hives against a windbreak gave the highest numbers of bees entering hives with pollen, +156%.
- Taxon
- lowbush blueberries
Vaccinium angustifoliume0 - Treatment
- Placing bumble bee hives against a windbreake1
- Interactor
- Bombus impatiens
Bombus impatiense0pollinator - Outcome
- bees entering hives with pollene1
- Direction
- highest numberse1
- Value
- +156%e1
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Common eastern bumble bees (Bombus impatiens Cresson) play an essential role in pollinating lowbush blueberries (LB) in northern Quebec”
e1“Placing bumble bee hives against a windbreak resulted in the highest numbers of bees entering hives with pollen (+156%)”
Claim · model-written summary
Placing bumble bee hives against a windbreak increased bees leaving hives by 69%.
- Taxon
- lowbush blueberriesVaccinium angustifoliume0
- Treatment
- Placing bumble bee hives against a windbreake1
- Interactor
- Bombus impatiensBombus impatiense0pollinator
- Outcome
- leaving hivese2
- Direction
- higherinferrede2
- Value
- +69%e2
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Common eastern bumble bees (Bombus impatiens Cresson) play an essential role in pollinating lowbush blueberries (LB) in northern Quebec”
e1“Placing bumble bee hives against a windbreak resulted in the highest numbers of bees entering hives with pollen (+156%)”
e2“resulted in the highest numbers of bees entering hives with pollen (+156%), leaving hives (+69%), and overall hive traffic (+76%)”
Claim · model-written summary
Placing bumble bee hives against a windbreak increased overall hive traffic by 76%.
- Taxon
- lowbush blueberriesVaccinium angustifoliume0
- Treatment
- Placing bumble bee hives against a windbreake1
- Interactor
- Bombus impatiensBombus impatiense0pollinator
- Outcome
- overall hive traffice2
- Direction
- higherinferrede2
- Value
- +76%e2
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Common eastern bumble bees (Bombus impatiens Cresson) play an essential role in pollinating lowbush blueberries (LB) in northern Quebec”
e1“Placing bumble bee hives against a windbreak resulted in the highest numbers of bees entering hives with pollen (+156%)”
e2“resulted in the highest numbers of bees entering hives with pollen (+156%), leaving hives (+69%), and overall hive traffic (+76%)”
Claim · model-written summary
Insulating hives with extruded polystyrene foam increased foraging activity by 105% compared with the conventional management method.
- Taxon
- lowbush blueberriesVaccinium angustifoliume0
- Treatment
- Insulating hives with extruded polystyrene foame3
- Interactor
- Bombus impatiensBombus impatiense0pollinator
- Outcome
- foraging activitye3
- Direction
- increasee3
- Value
- 105%e3
- Comparator
- conventional management methode3
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Common eastern bumble bees (Bombus impatiens Cresson) play an essential role in pollinating lowbush blueberries (LB) in northern Quebec”
e3“Insulating hives with extruded polystyrene foam gave intermediate results, with a 105% increase in foraging activity compared to the conventional management method”
Claim · model-written summary
Placing hives on seedling mats to keep colonies above 15 °C tended to decrease foraging activity and overall hive traffic.
- Taxon
- lowbush blueberriesVaccinium angustifoliume0
- Treatment
- placing hives on seedling matse6
- Interactor
- Bombus impatiensBombus impatiense0pollinator
- Outcome
- foraging activitye6
- Direction
- tended to decreasee6
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Common eastern bumble bees (Bombus impatiens Cresson) play an essential role in pollinating lowbush blueberries (LB) in northern Quebec”
e6“placing hives on seedling mats to maintain colony temperatures above 15 °C (H+) tended to decrease foraging activity and overall hive traffic”
Claim · model-written summary
Conventional placement of hives in full sun without insulation gave the lowest bumble bee foraging activity and overall hive traffic.
- Taxon
- lowbush blueberriesVaccinium angustifoliume0
- Treatment
- placing hives in full sun without insulatione4
- Interactor
- Bombus impatiensBombus impatiense0pollinator
- Outcome
- bumble bee foraging activitye5
- Direction
- lowest levelse5
Not reportedComparator
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Common eastern bumble bees (Bombus impatiens Cresson) play an essential role in pollinating lowbush blueberries (LB) in northern Quebec”
e4“the conventional management of placing hives in full sun without insulation”
e5“resulted in the lowest levels of bumble bee foraging activity and overall hive traffic”