تأثير التغذية ببدائل حبوب اللقاح والرحيق على نشاط نحل العسل

Summary

This research was done in Honey Bee Center, Faculty of Agriculture-Sana'a University, during 2005–2006, to find out proper pollen and nectar substitutes from local and cheap materials. Local wheat and maize meals, water extracts of attractive fleabane and blue gum plants, water and sugar were used to prepare paste cake of pollen substitutes and sugar syrup (nectar substitutes). Their effects on activity of Yemeni bee race, Apis mellifera jementica. were done in the three experiments. The first experiment was done in winter and spring seasons for three successive days in each season using 12 food treatments to study their food consumption by workers of honey bee colonies when food offered inside or outside their hives. The second experiment was done in winter and spring seasons for three months in each season, to evaluate the effect of 14 food treatments on the activities of bee colonies by measuring areas of worker and drone sealed broods, stored ripe and unripe honey and stored pollen in square centimeters, quantity of food consumed in grams, area of prepared wax comb which secreted or build up from offered area of wax foundation, cleaning ability of bees in carrying and removing abnormal bodies by weighing the carried and removed small bodies in grams, and evaluation of Honey yield obtained from colonies of each treatment. The third experiment was done in middle of August, 2006 for 3 successive days on 18 food treatments to evaluate the preference of pollen and nectar substitutes fortified by attractive plant extracts and offered to bee colonies by counting the number of attracted workers and quantity of food consumed. The obtained results are summarize as follow : The results showed that the inside feeding on food substitutes in winter and spring seasons gave the largest daily consumed food and averaged 18.8 and 21gm/day, while the smallest daily consumed food occurred in the outside feeding and averaged 8.7and 11.4 gm/day, respectively. Feeding honey bee colonies during winter season of (2005–2006) showed that the food treatment b3 (Maize sugar paste fortified with Blue gum extract + Sugar syrup fortified with Blue gum extract) produced the largest areas of daily sealed worker brood and averaged 35.7, 31.5 and 28.1 cm2 and raised their daily rates to 139.4, 122.9 and 109.5% after feeding till the ends of November and December 2005 and January, 2006 as compared to those before feeding, respectively. The largest areas of stored ripe honey produced from feeding on nectar substitutes or field nectar were obtained from feeding on sugar syrup treatment c (Plain sugar syrup) till the end of November, on treatment b4 (Maize sugar paste fortified with Fleabane and Blue gum extracts + Sugar syrup fortified with Fleabane and Blue gum extract) till the end of December and on treatment a1(Plain wheat sugar paste + Plain sugar syrup) till the end of January and averaged 213, 158 and 391.7 cm2 with percentage increases to 312, 223.3 and 557.8% respectively, as compared to those before feeding. The largest areas of unripe honey were obtained in colonies fed on treatment b3 till the end of November, on treatment b4 till the end of both December and January, and averaged 683, 1078.7 and 771.3 cm2 with percentage increases to 256.4, 355.3 and 554.4% as compared to those before feeding, respectively. The largest areas of stored pollen were found in colonies fed on treatment b2 (Maize sugar paste fortified with Fleabane extract + Sugar syrup fortified with Fleabane extract) till the end of November, on treatment c till the end of December and on treatment b3 till the end of January and averaged 60.3, 50.7 and 56.7 cm2 with percentage increases to 317.5, 285 and 268.3% as compared to those before feeding , respectively. The largest quantity of consumed pollen substitutes (offered every 3 days) was occurred in colonies fed with treatment b3 and averaged 23.3 gm. The largest quantity of consumed sugar syrup (nectar substitutes) (offered every 3 days )was occurred in colonies fed with treatment b1(Plain maize sugar paste + Plain sugar syrup) and averaged 489ml. The largest area of prepared wax comb was occurred in colonies fed with treatment b4 and averaged 374.3 cm2 by an increase of 174.3 cm2 more than offered area of wax foundation. The largest discharged amount of abnormal bodies was occurred in colonies fed with treatments a1and b2 and averaged 0.008 gm. Feeding honey bee colonies during spring season of (2006) showed that the largest areas of daily sealed worker brood was obtained in colonies fed on treatment b3 till the middle of March, on treatment a3b3 (Wheat and Maize sugar paste fortified with Blue gum extract + Sugar syrup fortified with Blue gum extract) till the middle of April and on treatment b4 till the middle of May and averaged 189, 152and 174.9 cm2 with percentage increases to 290.4, 234.4 and 270%, respectively as compared to those before feeding in middle of February, 2006.

The largest areas of daily sealed drone brood were obtained in colonies fed on treatment b1 till the middle of April and on treatment b4 till the middle of May and averaged 10.3 and 4.6 cm2, respectively. The largest areas of stored ripe honey were produced from feeding or field nectar were obtained in colonies fed on treatment b4 till 15 March, on or treatment a1b1(Plain wheat and Maize sugar paste + Plain sugar syrup) till 15 April or treatment c till 15 May and averaged 693, 1000 and 1433.3 cm2, with percentage increases to 274, 394 and 574.8%, as compared to those before feeding, respectively. The largest areas of stored unripe honey were produced in colonies fed on treatment b3 till 15 march, on treatment b4 till 15 April or on treatment a4b4 (Wheat and Maize sugar paste fortified with Fleabane and Blue gum extracts +Sugar syrup fortified with Fleabane and Blue gum extracts) till 15 May and averaged 1615.7, 2063 and 2133.3 cm2 with percentage increase to 160.7, 205.8 and 212.7% as compared to those before feeding, respectively. The largest areas of stored pollen were found in colonies fed on treatment b4 till middle of both March, and April, and on treatment c till middle of May and averaged 474, 967.7 and 1380.7 cm2 with percentage increases to 1134.8,2316.7 and 3690.6%, respectively as compared to those before feeding. The largest quantity of consumed pollen substitutes (offered one every 3 days ) was occurred in colonies fed on treatment b3 and averaged 29.3 gm. The largest quantity of consumed sugar syrup (nectar substitutes) ( offered every 3 days )was occurred in colonies fed on treatment b4 and averaged 500ml. The largest area of prepared wax comb was occurred in colonies fed with treatment b1 and averaged 586.4 cm2 with an increase of 386.33 cm2 more than offered area of wax foundation (200 cm2). The largest amount of abnormal bodies (pieces of small papers) discharged out of the hives was occurred in colonies fed with treatment a3b3 and averaged 0.050 gm. The largest honey yields were obtained at the end of the experiment (20 May, 2006) from colonies fed on treatment c and averaged 3.8 kg. When relating the honey yield of colonies fed on any of treatments to its area of stored honey (ripe+unripe) , it could be concluded that there was a highly significant correlation between the stored honey area (cm2) and honey yield (gm) where r = 0.969 and b = 0.94 gm. It means that in all treatments of feeding , the increase of one cm2 in stored honey area produced an increase of 0.94 gm in honey yield. All soft feeding treatments attracted large numbers of honey bee workers as their rats ranged between 93.2 and 175.4 workers, on feeding treatments of a4b4 (Wheat and Maize sugar paste fortified with Fleabane and Blue gum extracts) and a4 (Wheat sugar paste fortified with Fleabane and Blue gum extracts), respectively, without any significant difference between them. On the other hand , the attracted workers consumed the largest quantity from soft feeding treatments as their consumption rates ranged between 12.1and 18.3 gm /hours from feeding treatments b4 (Maize sugar paste fortified with Fleabane and Blue gum extracts) and a2b2 (Wheat and Maize sugar paste fortified with Fleabane extract), respectively. From the previous result, it could be recommended to feed bee colonies during fall on paste of Maize sugar paste fortified with fleabane and blue gum extracts as pollen substitutes and sugar syrup fortified with fleabane and blue gum extract as nectar substitutes colonies and use internal feeding system and introduce the food as paste and not as powder. Abstract From the previous result, it could be recommended to feed bee colonies during fall on paste of maize sugar paste fortified with fleabane and blue gum extracts as pollen substitutes and sugar syrup fortified with fleabane and blue gum extract as nectar substitutes colonies and use internal feeding system and introduce the food as paste and not as powder. Key words: Feeding honey bee colonies, pollen and nectar substitutes, plant extracts, Gavin floor, brood rearing, stored honey, stored pollen, preparing combs, cleaning hives.