Honey bees are exposed to pesticides when their foraging patterns, interacting with the distribution of floral resources, overlap with the distribution of environmental contamination. Accordingly, mechanistic models of honey bee pesticide exposure must incorporate each of these three elements. Here, I present a simulation model of honey bee exposure to seed treatment neonicotinoids released during corn planting. Honey bee foraging patterns are modeled using dance language analysis data, floral resource distribution is modeled based on field studies in the central Ohio agricultural landscape, and environmental contamination is modeled according to field data on the drift of seed treatment neonicotinoids. The model runs in randomly generated landscapes composed of simulated corn fields, soybean fields, and interstitial regions representing field margins and roadsides. During each simulation run, exposure is calculated as a distribution of concentrations arising from individual foraging trips. The results of running my model with incremental variation of weed prevalence in corn fields corroborate earlier work recommending the suppression of weeds in corn fields as a means of reducing honey bee exposure. Moreover, though, the results of my model suggest that flowering weeds in soybean fields may be equally important in reducing honey bee exposure by drawing foragers away from the more contaminated flora in and near corn fields. By incorporating random processes in both landscape generation and honey bee foraging simulation, my model also represents the stochasticity that is intrinsic to the phenomenon of honey bee pesticide exposure.

Modeling the exposure of honey bees to seed treatment insecticides during corn planting

254th National Meeting (2017)

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