Dataset of a Germany-wide field study assessing honey bee colony development, brood development, and floral nectar as well as gut microbiomes under fungicide exposure and pollen restriction in 2022

The data set contains the corresponding raw data from the publication: Wueppenhorst et a. (2024). Honey bee colonies can buffer short-term stressor effects of pollen restriction and fungicide exposure on colony development and the microbiome (DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2024.116723).

A total of 128 honey bee colonies were subjected to a Germany-wide field trial, during which they were exposed to combined stressors, namely fungicide exposure and pollen restriction, from April 2022 to April 2023. The parameters of colony development and brood development were recorded over the course of the bee season, while microbiome data was collected during the treatment phase. Colony population estimates were conducted at three-week intervals, commencing with the blooming of the oilseed rape field. Brood assessment was performed during the treatment phase, with the first brood cycle. In-hive bees and forager bees were collected before, during, and after the treatment phase, and their gut microbiomes were analyzed for abundances of five core species. Additionally, plant flowers of the oilseed rape were collected and analyzed for nectar-inhabiting yeast species. All parameters can be found in separate data tables accompanied by an explanatory metadata file. Dataset comprises of five individual data tables a) Data of honey bee colony assessments from spring to autumn 2022 (Population_data.xlsx), b) Data of honey bee overwintering success (Overwintering_Data.xlsx), c) Data of honey bee brood assessment of the first brood cycle within treatment period (Brood_Data.xlsx), d) qPCR data to determine the core microbiome bacterial abundances (Microbiome_Data.xlsx), e) Data of nectar yeast abundances of rape seed flowers (Nectaryeast_Data.xlsx). Further information about the experimental setup can be found in the corresponding publication (doi: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2024.116723).