NUTRITIONAL VALUE OF CERTAIN BEE BREAD TYPES AND THEIR EFFECTS ON HONEY BEE WORKERS | ||
| Assiut Journal of Agricultural Sciences | ||
| Article 12, Volume 39, Issue 1, March 2008, Pages 141-152 PDF (272.17 K) | ||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/ajas.2008.269507 | ||
| Authors | ||
| Mohamed M. Khodairy1; Adham M. Moustafa2 | ||
| 1Plant Protection Dept., Fac. of Agric. Assiut Univ | ||
| 2Plant Protection Research Institute, Agricultural Research Centre, Dokki, Giza, Egypt. | ||
| Abstract | ||
| The nutritional value of certain bee bread types from monofloral sources was evaluated on honey bee workers under laboratory conditions, by determining the bee bread consumption and development degree of hypopharyngeal glands. The greatest rate of consumed food was recorded during the first six days (c. 79.7%), specially the first three days (c. 44.7%) from total consumption. The cumulative bee bread consumptions by bees during feeding period were 60.7, 58.7, 58.0, 57.1, 56.6, 51.6 and 50.6 mg/bee/21 days for caper, broad bean fennel, maize, Egyptian clover, canola and coriander bee bread, respectively. The highest degree of glands development was recorded in bees fed on canola (3.6) or broad bean bee bread (3.56), whereas the lowest score was obtained in bees fed on fennel bee bread. According to results the bee bread types could be classified into three categories depending on their nutritional values in relation to hypopharyngeal glands development as follows: the first group (most effective), the gland degree was more than 3.5, included canola and broad bean bee bread. The second category (considerably effective) ranged from 3 to 3.5, included Egyptian clover. Meanwhile, the third one (slightly effective) included maize, caper, coriander, and fennel bee bread. Since no single pollen source provides bees with all nutritional requirements. It can be recommendded that honey bees used for pollinating monoculture crops e.g. maize, caper, coriander or fennel, needs to provide nutritional supplement sources to enrich their diets, to establish health colonies and good production. | ||
| Keywords | ||
| honey bee; bee bread; consumption; hypopharyngeal gland; nutritional value | ||
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