Earlier Morning Arrival to Pollen-Rewarding Flowers May Enable Feral Bumble Bees to Successfully Compete with Local Bee Species and Expand Their Distribution Range in a Mediterranean Habitat.

During recent decades, bumble bees () have continuously expanded their range in the Mediterranean climate regions of Israel. To assess their potential effects on local bee communities, we monitored their diurnal and seasonal activity patterns, as well as those of native bee species in the Judean Hills. We found that all bee species tend to visit pollen-providing flowers at earlier times compared to nectar-providing flowers.