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Standardized protocol to evaluate pollen polypeptides as bee food source

International audienceBees mainly rely on pollen for their protein resources. As these molecules are essential for numerous aspects of bee physiology like ovary development and larval growth, their quantification and determination are crucial to evaluate diet quality. However, the term “protein” has been used to mention crude protein, total amino acids, or protein sensu stricto (i.e., polypeptides of molecular weight >10,000 Da). In addition to this ambiguity, current methods for protein quantification suffer from bias due to nonprotein nitrogen and protein-to-protein variations. A reliable and nondestructive method to quantify the pollen polypeptides is then essential to estimate bee food source. The present paper aims (a) to detail such a protocol, (b) to evaluate its efficiency, and (c) to confront its results to those returned by traditional methods of protein estimation. Our protocol clearly overrides some bias of previous methods and is highly reliable. Results show the high variability in content of pollen polypeptides and suggest that the main part of the proteinaceous nitrogen is from oligopeptides. They also highlight that hand-collected pollen is a better matrice than pollen loads to estimate the polypeptides of pollen as bee food source

Using DNA metabarcoding to investigate honey bee foraging reveals limited flower use despite high floral availability

Understanding which flowers honey bees (Apis mellifera) use for forage can help us to provide suitable plants for healthy honey bee colonies. Accordingly, honey DNA metabarcoding provides a valuable tool for investigating pollen and nectar collection. We investigated early season (April and May) floral choice by honey bees provided with a very high diversity of flowering plants within the National Botanic Garden of Wales. There was a close correspondence between the phenology of flowering and the detection of plants within the honey. Within the study area there were 437 genera of plants in flower during April and May, but only 11% of these were used. Thirty-nine plant taxa were recorded from three hives but only ten at greater than 1%. All three colonies used the same core set of native or near-native plants, typically found in hedgerows and woodlands. The major plants were supplemented with a range of horticultural species, with more variation in plant choice between the honey bee colonies. We conclude that during the spring, honey bees need access to native hedgerows and woodlands to provide major plants for foraging. Gardens provide supplementary flowers that may increase the nutritional diversity of the honey bee diet