![]() ![]() Furthermore, studies of patch use by wild and managed bees will elucidate the degree to which these bee groups exhibit differences in habitat requirements. Understanding local habitat use by wild bees and managed honey bees will provide valuable information to resource managers seeking to conserve existing habitats and creating new habitats. The need for additional research of patch utilization of wild and managed bees has been amplified due to the growing concern that some managed bees, particularly honey bees, may be competing against wild bees for resources (Mallinger et al., 2017 Wojcik et al., 2018). Department of Agriculture released a research action plan in 2021 highlighting the need for additional habitat and forage research of managed and wild bees to ensure habitat needs of both groups are met (U.S. In the United States, multiple government and nongovernment initiatives have been developed to enhance bee habitat on public and private lands (Pollinator Health Task Force, 2015). Pollinator declines have generated significant public interest in conserving bees and their habitats (Goulson et al., 2015 Hall & Martins, 2020 Spivak et al., 2017). Our results are valuable to natural resource managers tasked with supporting habitat for managed and wild pollinators in agroecosystems. The greatest potential for resource overlap between honey bees and wild bees appears to be for non‐native flowers in the PPR. ![]() Our study suggests wild bees and honey bees routinely use the same resource patches in the PPR but often visit different flowering plants. Of the 4039 honey bee and flower interactions, 85% occurred on non‐native flowers, while only 43% of the 738 wild bee observations occurred on non‐native flowers. Honey bees were more frequently detected during sampling events with more non‐native flowers and higher species richness but showed an uncertain relationship with native flower abundance. We found some evidence that wild bee use was lower at transects near commercial apiaries, but the effect size was imprecise ( β ^ distance = 1.4 ± 0.81). Wild bees more frequently used transects with higher flower richness and more abundant flowers however, the effect size of the native flower abundance covariate ( β ^ native = 3.90 ± 0.65 ) was four times greater than the non‐native flower covariate ( β ^ n o n ‐ n a t i v e = 0.99 ± 0.17). ![]() Estimates of transect use by honey bees were nearly 1.0 during our 3.5‐month sampling period, suggesting honey bees were nearly ubiquitous across transects. We used occupancy models to investigate patterns of bee use across 1030 transects spanning a gradient of floral resource abundance and richness and distance from apiaries in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of the United States. Understanding habitat needs and patch utilization of wild and managed bees has been identified as a national research priority in the United States. ![]()
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