The effect of diet on queen rearing by caged worker honeybees

Abstract

Groups of 400, 5-day-old nurse bees were used to rear queens in cages in the laboratory; seven different diets were fed to the nurse bees. The development of the hypopharyngeal glands of the nurse bees, their queen-rearing ability, and the brood production of the queens that they reared were used to evaluate these diets. Diets of stored pollen fortified with amino acids or vitamins, and of fresh pollen had similar effects on the development of the hypopharyngeal glands. The hypopharyngeal glands of nurse bees fed pollen substitute, pollen supplement, or stored pollen degenerated with age, and queen rearing by these groups was low. Queens reared by nurse bees fed stored pollen with amino acids or vitamins produced large amounts of brood, but significantly less than those queens reared by bees fed diets with fresh pollen.