Flower strips enhance abundance of bumble bee queens and males in landscapes with few honey bee hives

Wild bee declines in agricultural landscapes have led farmers to supplement crops with honey bees. Simultaneously, environmental subsidy and conservation programmes incentivized establish flower strips support wild managed pollinators. To find out if enhance, competition from bees suppresses, the landscape across seasons, we surveyed bumble abundances 16 sites Sweden summer 2018. The centre of each site (2 km radius) was or without an annual strip, added hives. We strip linear habitats around site, such as field edges road verges. In following spring, queen abundance site. show that adding benefits year, but this effect is diminished honeybee hives are added. strips, reduced male abundance. Our relatively small areas bolstered population growth probably by relieving a resource bottleneck. Adding combination few floral resources should be avoided it cancelled positive strips.