The influence of feeding on Apis mellifera scutellata queen rearing and brood production

[摘要] English: After vast numbers of Apis mellifera scufellafa colonies had to bedestroyed as a result of Apis mellifera capensis infestations, the so-calledCapensis problem, it became clear that there was a great need for efficientqueen rearing in South Africa.A queen rearing programme in a commercial beekeeping business atDouglas was implemented to replace the large number of lost scufellafacolonies. Within the first week of queen rearing having started, large numbersof eggs were noticed in the queen cells, indicating capensis laying workers. Theacceptance of grafted queen cell cups was very low in general, the highestpercentage being 48 %. The percentage emergence of queen cells introducedinto mating nucleus colonies was high, namely 95 %. However, only 44 % ofthese queens mated successfully, and had a normal brood pattern. This gavean overall success rate of 20 % maximally in the presence of Cape layingworkers. A number of factors that influence queen rearing, excluding Cape layingworkers, were investigated, namely different queen cup lengths, dry and wetgrafting, and the interval between dequeening and grafting on acceptance on thegrafted larvae. The bees preferred queen cell cups with a length of 9 mm(73,3 %) to other lengths of 7 mm (0,0 %), 8 mm (52,5 %) and 11,5 mm(33,4 %). Acceptance of queen cells was higher when larvae were grafted intoa droplet afwater (72 %), compared to dry grafts (57 %). Acceptance of graftedqueen cells was 73,3 % after a 24 hour queen less period, compared to 7,2 %after 8,5 hours without a queen. A 60 % sugar solution is recommended for feeding honeybees before ahoneyflow or during queen rearing, because it was found not to ferment easily,thus necessitating feeding once a week only.Different pollen supplements and substitutes were tested for preferenceand brood production. On dry substitutes outside the hives, most bees werecounted on the mixture of sifted maize and Lotmix ® (a cattle feed), to which drypowdered sugar had been added. The other substitutes that contained no maizemeal, namely yeast and mixtures of yeast, soy and powder milk, were notcollected. When natural pollen became more freely available, pollen substituteswere generally ignored.The following substitutes/supplements, in decreasing order of preference,were tested as moist patties inside hives: Beltsville substitute, fine maize meal,soy + pollen (3: 1), yeast + milk + pollen (2:2: 1), Pronutro ® (breakfast cereal),soy + pollen (9: 1), and soy + yeast + milk (3: 1:1). The following substitutes/supplements, in decreasing order of broodproduction, were tested: Pronutro ® + pollen (4:1), Beltsville substitute, soy +pollen (4:1), soy + yeast (3:2), soy + yeast + milk (3:1:1), and soy + yeast + egg(2: 1:1). The soy + pollen combination is recommended for the highest broodproduction at the lowest price.Natural pollen was most plentiful during September, November,December and April in Bloemfontein. The most abundant pollens were fromEucalyptus spp., Tribulus terrestris, Rhus lancea and Helianthus annuus. Thedifferent pollen types and their percentages were tabled for every month. Thetotal amount of pollen trapped for the one year period was 3580,6 g. Pollen trapefficiency was calculated to be 10 %, therefore the total amount of pollencollected by the colony was approximately 35,8 kg.

[发布机构] University of the Free State