Much like human consumers, honeybees adjust their behaviours based on resources' supply and demand. For both, interactions occur in fluctuating conditions. Honeybees weigh the cost of flight against the benefit of nectar and pollen, which are nutritionally distinct resources that serve different purposes: bees collect nectar continuously to build large honey stores for overwintering, but they collect pollen intermittently to build modest stores for brood production periods. Therefore, nectar foraging can be considered a supply-driven process, whereas pollen foraging is demand-driven. Here we compared the foraging distances, communicated by waggle dances and serving as a proxy for cost, for nectar and pollen in three ecologically distinct landscapes in Virginia. We found that honeybees foraged for nectar at distances 14% further than for pollen across all three sites (n= 6224 dances,p< 0.001). Specific temporal dynamics reveal that monthly nectar foraging occurs at greater distances compared with pollen foraging 85% of the time. Our results strongly suggest that honeybee foraging cost dynamics are consistent with nectar supply-driven and pollen demand-driven processes.

Gardening for pollinators and other flower-visiting insects, where ornamental landscaping plants are added to provide habitats and foraging resources, may provide substantial benefits to declining insect populations. However, plant recommendations often lack empirical grounding or are limited geographically. Here, we created a pollinator garden, replicated across two sites, that contained 25 ornamental landscape plants that were either native or non-native to mid-Atlantic states and perennial or annual. Our objective was to determine the plants that would bring insect abundance and diversity to gardens. We surveyed the number and taxonomy of insects visiting the plants for two summers. We found a significant effect of plant species on both the abundance and diversity of flower-visiting insects. Insects were 42 times more abundant on our most visited plant (black-eyed Susan, Rudbeckia fulgida) versus our least visited plant (petunia, Petunia sp.). There was more than one diversity point difference in the Shannon index between the plant with the most (purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea) and least (verbena, Verbena bonariensis) diverse visitors. Across our plants, honey bee (Apis mellifera) abundance positively correlated with other insect pollinators, although not specifically with wild bee abundance. Native perennials outperformed non-native perennials and non-native annuals in insect abundance, and both non-native and native perennials attracted more diversity than non-native annuals. Across plants, diversity scores quadratically related to insect abundance, where the highest diversity was seen on the plants with medium abundance. Lastly, we present the weighted sums of all insect visitors per plant, which will allow future gardeners to make informed landscaping decisions. Overall, we have shown that gardening schemes could benefit from a data-driven approach to better support abundant and diverse insect populations within ornamental landscape gardens.

Honey bees provide invaluable economic and ecological services while simultaneously facing stressors that may compromise their health. For example, agricultural landscapes, such as a row crop system, are necessary for our food production, but they may cause poor nutrition in bees from a lack of available nectar and pollen. Here, we investigated the foraging dynamics of honey bees in a row crop environment. We decoded, mapped, and analyzed 3459 waggle dances, which communicate the location of where bees collected food, for two full foraging seasons (April–October, 2018–2019). We found that bees recruited nestmates mostly locally (<2 km) throughout the season. The shortest communicated median distances (0.474 and 0.310 km), indicating abundant food availability, occurred in July in both years, which was when our row crops were in full bloom. We determined, by plotting and analyzing the communicated locations, that almost half of the mid‐summer recruitment was to row crops, with 37% (2018) and 50% (2019) of honey bee dances indicating these fields. Peanut was the most attractive in July, followed by corn and cotton but not soybean. Overall, row crop fields are indicated by a surprisingly large proportion of recruitment dances, suggesting that similar agricultural landscapes may also provide mid‐summer foraging opportunities for honey bees.

Many of the fruits that add diversity and nutrition to our diet are wholly or partially dependent upon flower‐visiting insects. For example, apples (Malus spp.) are self‐incompatible and therefore rely on insect pollinators for fruit development and seed production. Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are often migrated into these orchards when the apples are in bloom. While previous studies have focused on the impact of honey bees to fruit orchards, fewer studies have examined the reciprocal relationship of the orchards to honey bees, particularly if the bees are in the orchard for the entire foraging season, not just during bloom. Here we investigated the foraging dynamics of honey bees in apple orchards in Virginia for two full foraging seasons (April–October, 2018–2019). We decoded, mapped, and analyzed the waggle dances (n = 3710) made by returning foragers, which communicate the distance and direction from the hive to valuable resources, usually nectar or pollen. We found that bees foraged locally at <2 km throughout the season in both 2018 and 2019, with some long‐range recruitment of up to 11 km. Contrary to our expectations, apple blooms did not drive honey bee foraging. We determined in our calculations of percent (%) foraging that honey bees recruit more to the apple orchards after the bloom than during the bloom (29.4% vs. 18.6% in 2018 and 28.5% vs. 21.4% in 2019, respectively). Interestingly, honey bees recruited more to forests while the apples bloomed (36.9% and 25.7% in 2018 and 2019, respectively). Lastly, our odds ratio analysis, which includes a distance correction, indicates the honey bees were more than twice as likely to recruit to apple orchards in June, which is after the bloom, than in April or May, which is during the bloom. Our ground truthing revealed that post‐bloom apple orchards provided foraging opportunities on the growing understory of red and white clover (Trifolium spp.) and plantain (Plantago spp.). These data might therefore have important implications for best management practice decisions for bees located in fruit orchards.

Because nontarget, beneficials, like insect pollinators, may be exposed unintentionally to insecticides, it is important to evaluate the impact of chemical controls on the behaviors performed by insect pollinators in field trials. Here we examine the impact of a portable mosquito repeller, which emits prallethrin, a pyrethroid insecticide, on honey bee foraging and recruitment using a blinded, randomized, paired, parallel group trial. We found no significant effect of the volatilized insecticide on foraging frequency (our primary outcome), waggle dance propensity, waggle dance frequency, and feeder persistency (our secondary outcomes), even though an additional deposition study confirmed that the treatment device was performing appropriately. These results may be useful to consumers that are interested in repelling mosquitos, but also concerned about potential consequences to beneficial insects, such as honey bees.