Data from: Species richness of wild bees, but not the use of managed honey bees, increases fruit set of a pollinator-dependent crop

1. Native, wild bees are important pollinators for both crop and wild plants. With concerns over the availability and cost of managed honey bees, attention has turned to native, wild bees as crop pollinators. However, the ability of native, wild bees to provide sufficient pollination may depend on their populations at local scales. 2. Therefore, at the farm scale, we examined the pollination contribution of both native, wild bees and managed honey bees to apples, and assessed the relative importance of bee abundance versus species richness. Over three growing seasons, apple fruit set, bee abundance, and bee species richness were measured at orchards in Wisconsin, half of which used managed honey bees, thus allowing us to independently examine the contribution of native, wild bees to fruit set. We additionally conducted observations of honey bees and wild bees foraging on apple blossoms in order to examine functional complementarity. 3. We found that apples are highly dependent on animal pollinators. However, fruit set was not significantly higher at orchards with managed honey bees, nor did it increase with the number of honey bees per orchard. Instead, fruit set significantly increased with the species richness of native, wild bees during bloom. 4. Honey bees and wild bees showed different foraging preferences: honey bees more frequently visited apple flowers on densely blooming trees, while wild bees showed no preference for floral density, thereby evenly visiting trees throughout the orchard. 5. Synthesis and applications. Our results show that native, wild bees play a significant and unique role in apple pollination within our region, and cannot therefore be replaced by managed bees. Moreover, our findings suggest that bee conservation efforts should focus specifically on maintaining or increasing bee species richness in order to improve pollination and crop yields