Honey bees and native flower visitors in a Boston suburb: Assessing coexistence and conservation strategies

Concern that non-native honey bees (Apis mellifera) may disrupt and outcompete native pollinators is leading governments to consider restricting honey bee hives. However, local-scale information on the specific flower visitation patterns of honey bees and native insects is often absent from the decision-making process. To address this concern, we observed insect visitation to 391 native and non-native plant species in Newton, Massachusetts (USA), a Boston suburb with extensive conservation areas and public and private gardens. We found that honey bees and native bees, including bumblebees and solitary bees, visited a wide variety of cultivated, native, adventive, and pollinator garden plants. Cultivated plants received more overall visits than wild plant species, but the most visited plants were often wild plant species with mixed visitation by honey bees and native pollinators. For many plant species, particularly cultivated plants, we did not observe any flower visitation. These findings suggest that at this suburban location, floral resources seem sufficient to allow coexistence between honey bees, bumblebees and other native bees. We suggest that residents and government officials consider doing simple surveys like this one prior to altering regulations of honey bees. In situations like Newton, in addition to evaluating regulations on honey bee hives, we suggest officials consider ways to reduce other threats to native flower-visiting insects, such as herbicide and pesticide use and habitat loss, while also planting pollinator gardens and wildflower meadows to increase available resources.