Comparing protein content of pollen and his impact on the lenght of life of honeybees

Abstract

The objective of the research work was to compare the protein content of pollen from some plants visited frequently by honey bees in Bulgarian and Australian flora, and study the length of life of worker honey bees fed by pollen with different protein content. In this study the number of the same floral species, were described nine. Most number of favorite plants for honey bees are from Asteraceae – 5. The percentage of the total protein content in the compared bee-collected pollen grains ranged from: 11.5% for Chondrilla juncea to 25.1% for that of Brassica napus, and the average value was 18.5% for Bulgarian species, and 13.8% for Helianthus annuus to 25.9% for that of Trifolium repens, and the average value was 19.3% for Australian species. It is made a systematic comparison between Bulgarian and Australian protein content in pollen, but significant differences of the two groups were not found. Proteins are one of the the main components of honey bee-collected pollen, and can vary among different pollen plant species source. The very similar results in Bulgarian study compared to the published ones note the conservatism of pollen, despite the very long distance between Bulgaria and Australia, but having in mind if the Australian results come from inside country. It could be said that the honey bees in Bulgaria and Australia consume pollen with the same amount protein content from the same floral species. The length of live of worker bees ranged from 25 days when they consumed pollen from Brassica napus (25.1% protein content) to 14.3 days when they consumed pollen from Zea mays (17%). The present study was performed to make also a systematic comparison between length of life worker bees fed by pollen with different protein content and significant differences were found. The worker honey bees lived longer when they consumed pollen with higher protein content.