The Influence of Some Supplementary Feeds on Food Consumption and Body Weight of Caged Honeybees
Keywords:
caged honeybees, food consumption, weightAbstract
For beekeeping profitability even in droughty years, beekeepers replace natural bee food sources (pollen, nectar) with alternative food recipes based on energy syrups and protein flour, which determines certain consequences on the overall status of bee colonies and implicitly on their productions. The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of feeding with energy and energy-protein sources on food consumption and body weight of caged honeybees, during a 30 days period. Food consumption recorded the highest values for bees that received only energy feed, and the lowest values for those with energy-protein feed. Regarding to energy food, honey consumption recorded higher values than those of energy syrup consumption. The introducing of protein substances into food recipes (especially pollen substitutes) has led to an increase in the bee's body weight first, while in the last period this suddenly recorded lower values than those of bees fed only with energy food recipes; this could be due to the elimination of intestinal content.
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