Colony Size, Rather Than Geographic Origin of Stocks, Predicts Overwintering Success in Honey Bees (Hymenoptera: Apidae) in the Northeastern United States

Bees are the most important pollinator taxon; therefore, understanding the scale at which they forage has important ecological implications and conservation applications. The foraging ranges for most bee species are unknown. Foraging distance information is critical for understanding the scale at which bee populations respond to the landscape, assessing the role of bee pollinators in affecting plant population structure, planning conservation strategies for plants, and designing bee habitat refugia that maintain pollination function for wild and crop plants. We used data from 96 records of 62 bee species to determine whether body size predicts foraging distance. We regressed maximum and typical foraging distances on body size and found highly significant and explanatory nonlinear relationships. We used a second data set to: (1) compare observed reports of foraging distance to the distances predicted by our regression equations and (2) assess the biases inherent to the different techniques that have been used to assess foraging distance. The equations we present can be used to predict foraging distances for many bee species, based on a simple measurement of body size.

Warder C. Allee brought attention to the possibility of a positive relationship between aspects of fitness and population size 50 years ago. Until recently, however, this concept was generally regarded as an intriguing but relatively unimportant aspect of population ecology. Increasing appreciation that Allee effects must be incorporated into models of population dynamics and habitat use, together with recent interest in the implications of sociality for conservation, have shown that for ecology and conservation the consequences of the Allee effect are profound. The Allee effect can be regarded not only as a suite of problems associated with rarity, but also as the basis of animal sociality.