Evaluation of royal jelly quality and queens production by using natural food supplements in honeybee colonies | ||
| Egyptian Journal of Agricultural Research | ||
| Article 3, Volume 100, Issue 4, December 2022, Pages 458-466 PDF (671.22 K) | ||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/ejar.2022.141398.1237 | ||
| Authors | ||
| Rasha Sakla* 1; Samah El-shafeiy2 | ||
| 1Plant Protection Research Institute, Agriculture Research Center, Giza, Egypt. | ||
| 2Plant Protection Research Institute, Agriculture Research Center, Giza, Egypt | ||
| Abstract | ||
| The queen's production is one of the important and sensitive processes in beekeeping and certainly depended on royal jelly quality which plays an effective role in queen difference and vitality. This work suggested a novel plant feed supplements to improve royal jelly quality and enhance the vitality of newly emerged queens. Equal aliquots of Mahlab seed kernel powder (Prunus mahaleb L.) and date palm pollen (Phoenix dactylifera L.) were provided into colonies in a sugar patty formula for seven days before queen grafting and along for 21 days of the experiment compared to a traditional pollen patty and control sugar syrup. The supplemented patty recorded higher consumption rate of (85.44%) compared to the pollen patty (45.54%). Moreover, the new supplements showed the highest rate of queen acceptance and emergence percent compared to colonies fed on the pollen patty and syrup only. Regarding the new virgin queens' parameters, plant supplements lead to an increase in body and ovary weights to (0.2250 and 0.00562 g respectively) over those of traditional pollen patty (0.1826 and 0.00495 g) and control sugar syrup (0.1439 ±0.00414 g) likewise, an increase in the ovarioles number was detected. Moreover, a protective effect on DNA in ovary cells was recorded by agarose gel fragmentation analysis with the plant supplement group compared to the other groups. The SDS-PAGE analysis of royal jelly showed an improvement in protein quality and quantity with supplemented feeding patty. So, we can recommend the tested plant supplements to enhance royal jelly and queens’ production qualities. | ||
| Keywords | ||
| Apis mellifera; supplements; queen production; royal jelly; DNA fragmentation | ||
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