The effect of moving colonies of honeybees to new sites on their subsequent foraging behaviour

Abstract

1. Groups of colonies have been moved to crops requiring pollination: group A, before any blossom appeared; group B, when 5–15% of the crop was in flower; and group C, when the crop was in full flower, and the amount which the colonies of the different groups visited the crop was determined. The results tend to show that colonies of group B visited the experimental crop more than colonies of group A, thus supporting recommendations that colonies should not be moved to a crop requiring pollination until it has started to flower, so that the bees will not have previously become conditioned to visiting other flower species in the locality. 2. When a colony is moved to a new site its foragers tend to visit species they have visited previously, and the amount of a particular pollen that a colony collects at a new site is sometimes related to the amount of it the colony collected before it was moved. 3. The conclusion of previous workers that different colonies utilize the local flora in different ways have been confirmed. Different colonies vary greatly both in the number and kind of species they visit and in the extent to which they visit the same species. Although the extent to which colonies visit certain species tends to be related to the extent they have visited them previously, exceptions often occur.