- Published: March 18, 2015
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0122126
Abstract
Society is increasingly concerned with declining wild bee populations. Although most bees nest in the ground, considerable effort has centered on installing ‘bee hotels’—also known as nest boxes or trap nests—which artificially aggregate nest sites of above ground nesting bees. Campaigns to ‘save the bees’ often promote these devices despite the absence of data indicating they have a positive effect. From a survey of almost 600 bee hotels set up over a period of three years in Toronto, Canada, introduced bees nested at 32.9% of sites and represented 24.6% of more than 27,000 total bees and wasps recorded (47.1% of all bees recorded). Native bees were parasitized more than introduced bees and females of introduced bee species provisioned nests with significantly more female larva each year. Native wasps were significantly more abundant than both native and introduced bees and occupied almost 3/4 of all bee hotels each year; further, introduced wasps were the only group to significantly increase in relative abundance year over year. More research is needed to elucidate the potential pitfalls and benefits of using bee hotels in the conservation and population dynamics of wild native bees.Figures
Citation: MacIvor JS, Packer L (2015) ‘Bee Hotels’ as Tools for Native Pollinator Conservation: A Premature Verdict? PLoS ONE 10(3):
e0122126.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0122126
Academic Editor: Fabio S. Nascimento, Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Filosofia Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, BRAZIL
Received: October 4, 2014; Accepted: February 7, 2015; Published: March 18, 2015
Copyright: © 2015 MacIvor, Packer. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
Data Availability: Data cannot be made publicly available due to ethical restrictions that protect the privacy of the bee hotel owners. Data are available upon request by contacting jsmacivor@gmail.com.
Funding: JSM received funding from a Natural Science and Engineering Council of Canada (CGS D 408565) (http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/index_eng.asp). LP received funding from a Natural Science and Engineering Council of Canada Discovery Grant (http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/index_eng.asp). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Academic Editor: Fabio S. Nascimento, Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Filosofia Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, BRAZIL
Received: October 4, 2014; Accepted: February 7, 2015; Published: March 18, 2015
Copyright: © 2015 MacIvor, Packer. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
Data Availability: Data cannot be made publicly available due to ethical restrictions that protect the privacy of the bee hotel owners. Data are available upon request by contacting jsmacivor@gmail.com.
Funding: JSM received funding from a Natural Science and Engineering Council of Canada (CGS D 408565) (http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/index_eng.asp). LP received funding from a Natural Science and Engineering Council of Canada Discovery Grant (http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/index_eng.asp). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
