Summer but not spring resource supplementation improves bumblebee colony survival

Global agricultural expansion has led to the deterioration of many key foraging habitats for bees, but the impacts of nutritional stress caused by temporal gaps in food availability can be hard to isolate from other agricultural stressors. For bumblebee colonies (Bombus spp.), which have an annual lifecycle culminating in a summer reproductive period, this issue is further complicated by potential variation in vulnerability over the colony lifecycle. Isolating the effects of nutritional stress on bumblebee colonies could therefore direct agricultural interventions that seek to mitigate against further decline. We assayed whether available food resources are limiting colony productivity and survival by supplementing post-worker emergence Bombus terrestris colonies with ad libitum food during mid-spring or early summer on 20 farms across south-east England (“earlier” vs “later” treatments). In mid-spring, forage is potentially more abundant, but colonies are at an earlier developmental st..., , # Summer but not spring resource supplementation improves bumblebee colony survival

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.6djh9w1g5](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.6djh9w1g5)

## Description of the data and file structure

Over the course of April-August 2024, we placed 60 hand-reared bumblebee colonies on 20 farms around SE England, with 3 colonies on each farm. We initiated a staggered feeding experiment in order to identify periods of lower pollinator resource availability and greater vulnerability. One colony at each site was given excess pollen and sugar syrup for 3 weeks from April-May, another for 3 weeks from May-June (no overlap), with the remaining colony at each site acting as a negative control and not receiving any food. Throughout the experimental period, we visited each site and colony weekly at night, collecting data including but not limited to the number of alive and dead workers; queen status (alive/dead/absent); presence of invasive/usurping queens; and number of reproductive ...,