EFFECT OF VITAMIN ADDITIVE AND COLONY MAN-AGEMENT ON HONEY BEE PERFORMANCE

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Plant Protection Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, Shoubra El-Kheima, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

The effect of both beekeeping processes (compressed bees Cb and traditional beekeeping Tb) and food diets (vitamins mixed with pollen grains, pollen grains only and plain sugar syrup) on the colony build up were studied during February – April, 2004, at the apiary belonging to Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University. Feeding colonies with supplementary vitamins plus pollen grains resulted after four brood cycles significantly high daily rates of rearing brood (523 and 434 brood cells for Cb and Tb, respectively) and drawing combs (4.31 and 1.61 combs for Cb and Tb, respectively) compared to either unique pollen grains (432 and 338 brood cells and 3.2 and 1.19 combs for Cb and Tb, respectively) or plain sugar syrup (313 and 219 brood cells and 2.1 and 0.79 combs for Cb and Tb, respectively). On the other hand, the worker’s longevity recorded vice versa which were 21.2  26.2, 23.8 days for colonies fed on vitamins plus pollen grains, pollen grains and sugar syrup, respectively. The colonies which fed on vitamins plus pollen grains, pollen grains and plain sugar syrup, their workers were hoarded 236, 220 and 191 mg of sugar syrup / 3 days, respectively.  

Keywords

Arab Universities Journal of Agricultural Sciences
Volume 14, Issue 1
March 2006
Pages 427-438

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics