Quantitative multi‐locus metabarcoding and waggle dance interpretation reveal honey bee spring foraging patterns in Midwest agroecosystems

We explored the pollen foraging behaviour of honey bee colonies situated in the corn and soybean dominated agroecosystems of central Ohio over a month-long period using both pollen metabarcoding and waggle dance inference of spatial foraging patterns. For molecular pollen analysis, we developed simple and cost-effective laboratory and bioinformatics methods. Targeting four plant barcode loci (ITS2, rbcL, trnL and trnH), we implemented...