Department of Entomology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA.
The W.M. Keck Center for Behavioral Biology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA.
Sci Rep. 2016 Aug 24;6:32023. doi: 10.1038/srep32023.
Most pollination in large-scale agriculture is dependent on managed colonies of a single species, the honey bee Apis mellifera. More than 1 million hives are transported to California each year just to pollinate the almonds, and bees are trucked across the country for various cropping systems. Concerns have been raised about whether such "migratory management" causes bees undue stress; however to date there have been no longer-term studies rigorously addressing whether migratory management is detrimental to bee health. To address this issue, we conducted field experiments comparing bees from commercial and experimental migratory beekeeping operations to those from stationary colonies to quantify effects on lifespan, colony health and productivity, and levels of oxidative damage for individual bees. We detected a significant decrease in lifespan of migratory adult bees relative to stationary bees. We also found that migration affected oxidative stress levels in honey bees, but that food scarcity had an even larger impact; some detrimental effects of migration may be alleviated by a greater abundance of forage. In addition, rearing conditions affect levels of oxidative damage incurred as adults. This is the first comprehensive study on impacts of migratory management on the health and oxidative stress of honey bees.
在大规模农业中，大多数传粉依赖于单一物种的管理群体，即蜜蜂 Apis mellifera。每年有超过 100 万箱蜜蜂被运往加利福尼亚州，仅仅是为了给杏仁授粉，而蜜蜂则被运往全国各地用于各种作物系统。人们对这种“迁徙管理”是否会给蜜蜂带来过度压力表示担忧；然而，迄今为止，还没有更长期的研究严格评估迁徙管理是否对蜜蜂健康有害。为了解决这个问题，我们进行了现场实验，比较了商业和实验性迁徙养蜂作业中的蜜蜂与固定蜂群中的蜜蜂，以量化对寿命、蜂群健康和生产力以及个体蜜蜂氧化损伤水平的影响。我们发现，迁徙成年蜜蜂的寿命明显短于固定蜜蜂。我们还发现，迁徙会影响蜜蜂的氧化应激水平，但食物短缺的影响更大；更多的饲料可能会减轻迁徙的一些不利影响。此外，饲养条件会影响成年蜜蜂所遭受的氧化损伤水平。这是首次对迁徙管理对蜜蜂健康和氧化应激影响的综合研究。
