Performance of honey bee colonies fed some proteinaceous diet under isolated conditions

Abstract EN

The investigation was carried out at Plant Protection Department, Collage of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University.

The experiment was done using honey bee nuclei kept under isolated conditions and fed with five mixtures of proteinaceous diets.

The rate of food consumption, ability of honey bee nuclei to rear brood and quality of produced honey bee were determined.

The best consumption rate was recorded with diet 3 (Date past) followed by diet 4 (Feed Bee®), diet 2 (Mesquite) and diet 5 (Corn gluten), respectively.

The sealed brood areas of honey bee nuclei were highly dependent on the contribution of suitable protein from food as well as on its quality.

Bee bread is the best source of protein for honey bees.

The mean number of sealed brood cells under natural condition was 1066 cells / nucleus after 42 days.

It differed significantly with all areas in the colonies fed different proteinaceous diets.

The diet 4 (Feed Bee®) was the best one among the tested diets (174.7 cells / nucleus) followed by diet 3 (Mesquite, 111 cells / nucleus).

The poorest result was recorded for diet 5 (Corn gluten, 39 cells / nucleus).

The fresh weight, dry matter and protein content of full grown larvae and newly emerged honey bee workers were determined.

All parameters under artificial feeding were less than those produced under control condition (bee bread).

The best results were obtained with feeding honey bee with Feed Bee® followed by diet 2 (Mesquite).

Total soluble solids percentage (T.S.S.

%) and total haemolymph count (T.H.C.) were varied among different diets administrated.

Also, the haemolymph protein percentages were reduced significantly with feeding on artificial diets.

These results reflect the suitability of used diets to honey bees.

The artificial diets depend on the Date past and Mesquite pods flowers were more favorable than traditional pollen substitute based on soybean meal