Abstract

The aim of this study was to find out where bumble bee queens place their nests in the agricultural landscape. Nest-seeking behaviour was used to indicate nesting site preferences. Four types of agricultural landscape were investigated near Uppsala, Sweden: open, relatively open, relatively wooded and wooded. Twelve 500-metre-long transects, each including several intermingled habitats (e.g., field boundaries, pastures, clearings), were inspected repeatedly over a two-month period, from April to June 1991. In total, 147 observations of bumble bee queens (Bombus spp.) of eight species were recorded. Nest-seeking queens were observed most frequently along forest boundaries and field boundaries, in open uncultivated areas and in the relatively open landscape, whereas they were least frequent in forest and in clearings. Fields, pastures and road boundaries had intermediate frequencies. Differences among species were found in terms of both landscape type and habitat preferences: B. terrestris, B. lapidarius, B. sylvarum and B. subterranius preferred open terrain, whereas B. lucorum and B. pascuorum preferred forest boundaries. Withered grass and tussocks were the preferred nest-seeking patches among all species. 

Published in

Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment
2000, Volume: 77, pages: 247–255

SLU Authors

• Lagerlöf, Jan

  • Department of Ecology and Crop Production Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Svensson, Birgitta

  • Department of Ecology and Crop Production Sciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Ecology
Agricultural Science


Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/91744