EFFECT OF DIET ON THE RATE OF BROOD REARING BY NATURALLY AND INSTRUMENTALLY INSEMINATED QUEENS

Abstract

SUMMARY Small colonies of honey bees were established with ca. 4,000 newly emerged Italian bees and placed in 2 x 2 x 2 m flight cages. The colonies (total of 24) were divided into two groups; twelve were headed by instrumentally inseminated queens purchased from a commercial queen breeder and twelve headed by free flight mated queens reared at Beltsville, Maryland. Each group of l2 colonies was further divided into three treatments of four colonies each. Each group was offered diets containing either Yeaco (43 ‘% protein), Wheast (58 % protein), or soybean protein (90 % protein) as the sole protein source. The amount of sealed brood reared by each colony was measured for 12 weeks. Colonies of bees fed Wheast diets and headed by either instrumentally inseminated queens or free flight mated queens reared significantly more brood than similar units of bees fed either Yeaco or soybean diets. The second greatest amount of brood was reared by bees fed Yeaco diets followed by soybean fed bees. The results of this experiment demonstrated that, overall, instrumentally inseminated queens did as well as free mated queens under controlled conditions. This study also demonstrated that bees fed poor diets regardless of the genetic background of the queens will do poorly.