Spring is an essential time for honey bee foraging in temperate climates. This is a period of increased brood rearing supporting colony growth and demands access to high-quality pollen and nectar resources. With the expansion of urban and agricultural landscapes, the availability of pollen and nectar producing flowers is declining in many areas. We aim to determine how patterns of spring pollen and nectar foraging differ between colonies surrounded by varying degrees of urban and agricultural intensity, as well as to assess the potential for nectar sampling to serve as a proxy for pollen collection. Thirteen apiaries in Central Ohio, along a gradient of urban and agricultural intensity, were monitored in spring of 2019 through the periodic collection of pollen and nectar samples and continuous colony weight monitoring. We found that spring honey bees in urban and agricultural areas gain comparable amounts of weight and use similar spring resources. Foraging was heavily focused on fl...

In light of pollinator decline, green areas within cities can provide habitat for insect pollinators. As cities sprawl outward, lawns and lawn care chemicals expand in tandem with ecological repercussions, so the role cities play in pollinator conservation becomes increasingly important. Socio-economic factors like income and race may affect patterns of lawn care and cultivated plant diversity, which could affect pollinator communities in ways urban ecologists are only beginning to understand. Here we present a study of bees in 24 residential lawns in the city area and suburbs of Detroit along a socioeconomic gradient. We analyze relationships between census data, floral richness, and native bee abundance, diversity and composition. Through GIS analysis and selection of linear mixed models, we address the following questions, 1) Do temperature and floral species richness affect native bee abundance and genus richness in lawns? and 2) Do the socio-economic factors of income and race ...