Wheat germ, dried brewer's yeast and defatted soybean flour were offered, in form of cake (paste), as pollen substitutes to honeybee colonies. The effect of such feeding on brood rearing activity and queen production were investigated during 2003/2004 and 2004/2005 seasons in the apiary of Faculty of Agriculture at Moshtohor. Summarized results are as follow:
1- The greatest total sealed brood area was measured during spring season, ranging between 1590.66 (control) – 2471.01 inch2/colony for wheat germ treatment in the first season; 1667.00 and 2538.33 inch2/colony in the second season. The least brood rearing activity, however was detected in winter during 2003/2004 and in autumn during 2004/2005.
2- The cake based on wheat germ induced the highest brood rearing activity in both seasons as the total sealed brood area reached 6874.00 and 7132.67 inch2/colony. Dried brewer's yeast cake came the second class (6210.00 and 5995.67 inch2/colony), followed by soybean cake (5291.00 and 5598.67 inch2/colony). On the other hand, control colonies reared 4475.33 and 4358.35 inch2/colony in 2003/2004 and 2004/2005, respectively.
Percent increase in sealed brood area realized due to pollen substitutes feeding attained 52.99, 38.76 and 18.23% in the first season; 63.67, 37.57 and 28.46% in the second season for the colonies fed on the cake of wheat germ, dried brewer's yeast and defatted soybean flour, respectively.
Feeding queen rearing colonies on the test pollen substitutes resulted in considerable increase in grafted queen cups acceptance, ranging between 29.49 – 86.44%. In addition, an increase in the emergence of virgin queen, ranging between 45.11- 105.10% was detected in pollen substitute fed colonies. Wheat germ cake proved most potent in enhancing both grafted cups acceptance and virgin queen emergence to be especially during clover season.
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