Effects of advanced chelate-based mineral supplement on adult worker honey bees’ (Apis mellifera L.) survival, nutritional indices, hypopharyngeal glands’ growth, energy reserve contents, and tolerance to dimethoate

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This research aims to evaluate the effects of a chelated mineral diet supplement (hereinafter CMDS), namely Bonza bee which is designed based on the advanced chelate compounds technology, on adult worker honey bee’s (Apis mellifera L.) longevity, nutritional indices, hypopharyngeal glands’ (HPGs) growth, energy reserve contents, and tolerance to dimethoate. Newly emerged worker bees were confined in wooden laboratory cages and fed daily with 4 g of aqueous diets containing various concentrations of the CMDS (0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, and 0.8% diet weight) for 21 days. Results of survival analysis revealed that providing the bees with diets containing 0.2 and 0.4% CMDS had no toxic effect, but their survival significantly declined as the concentration of the CMDS in the diets was increased. It was found that the bees consumed the diets in a CMDS concentration-dependent manner and they showed a significantly lower tendency to the diets with high concentrations of the CMDS. The maximum relative body growth rate was observed in the bees fed with a diet containing 0.4% CMDS. It was found that the diets containing 0.2 and 0.4% CMDS promoted the HPGs growth. The content of nutrient reserve macromolecules (protein, glycogen, and lipid) was significantly higher in the bees fed with the CMDS-supplemented diets. We also found that the bees fed the diet with 0.5% CMDS were more tolerant to the residue of sublethal concentration of dimethoate. We conclude, therefore, that dietary CMDS concentrations from 0.2 to 0.4% are optimal for the honey bee’s growth and health.