Abstract
Background:The nutritional requirements of honeybees (Apis mellifera) for their complete development need to be supplied through food sources available in the environment, since honeybees are insects that depend directly on blossoming food sources. However, at certain times a food-supply reduction can promote nutritional stress, thus necessitating food supplementation for maintenance or production stimulus of the colonies. Thus, the determination of optimal energy supplementation can assist in the maintenance and production of colonies. Methods:Twenty Apis mellifera beehives were used (with five beehives per treatment): CTL, control (without feeding); SJ, sugarcane juice; SS, sugar syrup; and IS, inverted sucrose. We evaluated the food consumption, population development, and physiological state (expression of vitellogenin and hexamerin 70a genes) of each colony.Results:The results showed that the supplementation of colonies with sugar syrup resulted in an intermediate consumption level (894.6 ± 291 mL) and better development (384.9 ± 237.3 and 158.3 ± 171.6 cm2, sealed and open brood, respectively). Furthermore, this diet ensured that the colonies were in a good physiological state, as bees fed this diet presented the highest relative expression levels of vitellogenin and hexamerin 70a among all the diets tested.Conclusions:Therefore, sugar syrup is concluded to be the best artificial energetic food for use in the supplementation of honeybee colonies.
Highlights
The nutritional requirements of honeybees (Apis mellifera) for their complete development need to be supplied through food sources available in the environment, since honeybees are insects that depend directly on blossoming food sources
Nectar has an undeniable importance to colony development, since it is the main source of energetic food for bees and permits their survival [3]
The food treatments used were the following: control (CTL), in which no artificial food was provided; feeding with sugarcane juice (SJ) produced in an electric cane mill at a research laboratory; feeding with sugar syrup (SS) prepared using pre-boiled filtered water and sucrose (50% sugar and 50% water, produced freshly on the same day it was offered to the colonies); and feeding with inverted sucrose (IS) purchased from Atrium Food Group, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil (76 % sugar and 24% water)
Summary
The nutritional requirements of honeybees (Apis mellifera) for their complete development need to be supplied through food sources available in the environment, since honeybees are insects that depend directly on blossoming food sources. At certain times a food-supply reduction can promote nutritional stress, necessitating food supplementation for maintenance or production stimulus of the colonies. All of the nutritional needs of honeybees (Apis mellifera) for their complete development, maintenance, reproduction, production and longevity need to be supplied through food sources available in the environment [1]. It has been observed that when there is little available natural food, there are reductions in the number of worker bees in the hive, queen’s egg-laying and survival rates of individuals, and increases in escape or abandonment rates [6], dramatically affecting the production of colonies. As in the production of honey and other derivatives, colonies should be populous and well nourished to absorb the stress caused by the alarm pheromones released during venom harvest [8]
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