Bee diversity and abundance under a grazed cover cropping management system in eastern Colorado and southwestern Nebraska and evaluating the role of beekeeping education and management on honey bee hive overwintering success in Colorado

2021 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.Bee pollination is essential to the production of many valuable crops in addition to facilitating the reproduction of non-crop flowering plants in the environment. Managed and wild populations of bees face unique and overlapping challenges. Wild bees have been negatively impacted by habitat and forage loss as a result of agricultural intensification. There has been headway in finding solutions that offset the environmental impact of agriculture that benefit wild bees without being a financial burden to the producer. Solutions often include the introduction or retainment of forage and habitat within the agricultural landscape. One example of this is the inclusion of bee-friendly cover crops into a crop rotation. Cover crops can promote agroecosystem services such as, nitrogen fixation, reduce erosion etc., and also provide nesting habitat and forage for pollinators. Chapter one explores bee diversity and abundance under a grazed cover cropping management system in eastern Colorado and southwestern Nebraska. Blue vane traps were used to conduct monthly collections of bees within three cover-cropped fields to evaluate diversity and abundance of bees under varying grazing conditions. There was higher diversity of bee genera in fields where grazing intensity was low but bee abundance was higher in grazed fields with the highest representation being from the ground-nesting genus, Lasioglossum. Setting aside some cover-cropped areas to remain ungrazed, allowing plants to come into bloom will provide nutrition and nesting resources for bees in this region. Pathogens and pests are another set of challenges that pollinators face in the environment. Managed bees can be a source of inoculum for wild bees if hives are not kept healthy. Managed bees often visit the same forage sites as wild bees. These communal areas where wild and managed bees interact present opportunities for pathogens to spill over from the managed populations to the wild populations. Pathogen development and spread within managed populations can often be prevented by good beekeeper practices that keep hives healthy. Chapter two explores the role that beekeeping education plays in honey bee hive health and survival among hobby beekeepers across Colorado. While most commercial pollination services are provided by professional beekeepers with 500 or more hives, the majority of beekeepers in the United States are backyard beekeepers with typical operations of fewer than 50 hives. Despite increased interest in backyard beekeeping, average hive loss in the United States is still 35%-40%. Hive survival depends on beekeeper intervention, but many backyard beekeepers lack training and are unfamiliar with the hive management techniques necessary for maintaining healthy hives. Beekeeping education could help improve overwintering survival among back yard beekeepers. To evaluate the role of education in successful beekeeping, in Summer 2018 and Summer 2019, backyard beekeepers across the state of Colorado were contacted to participate in a honey bee health survey that included a questionnaire and a hive inspection. Using hive management, beekeeper education, mite load, and experience as predictors of hive survival, this study found that hive survival may be positively related to hive management