Simple answer, absolutely. We condition bees to search for things based on scent, and we train bees to focus on specific crops (the Russians first did this in the 1940-50s.Also, some brokers of bees for pollination, and at least one state, California, has minimum specifications of how many brood frames should be in each rented colony, as well as the minimum number of frames of bees.
In all of our trials, we count bees at target, whether that is a landmine, a drug lab, an exotic pest plant or animal, or a plant blossom can be altered by the amount of brood in the colony and critically, the stores present.A starving colony will become listless, a colony with little empty space will take a vacation. If there's a full super of honey just above a brood nest, overall bee foraging tends to drop.
If the beekeeper or grower feeds a colony, the foraging activity can be suppressed. We need the colonies to be healthy, with sufficient stores so as to not be nutritionally stressed, but without copious stores of nectar and honey. Their brooding and their foraging are not simply a matter of nectar flows. Obviously, pollen also enters into this activity 'throttle'. The absence of brood (eggs/larvae especially), and (here Randy may disagree) generally leads to lower or little pollen collection. Any colony that we spot that isn't bringing in pollen when others are, is likely to be queenless.
We usually work with the colonies already on seed crops. Getting the beekeepers or growers to stop automatically feeding the pollinator colonies is a problem in some areas. In fact, this also varies by country. Some insist that they have to feed bees to improve pollination, and there are supply companies eagerly making money selling syrup for pollination.
If they insist on feeding, we try to get them to use external feeding (not my preference due to potential pest and disease exchange at open feeders), rather than feeding inside the hive. When our own research colonies are on a dearth, we use top feeders at night, remove them during the day. Regardless, we always ask the beekeeper to provide a box of drawn, empty comb for each colony that we are using for our tests. We then place that box immediately above the brood nest. That avoids the feeding and/or 'food stores are good enough' syndrome.
Want to maximize pollination efficacy, make them find empty combs to fill.
Jerry
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