CHANGES IN THE HOARDING BEHAVIOR OF TWO HONEY BEE SUBSPCIES IN RELATION TO THE COLLECTION OF BEE VENOM DURING DIFFERENT SEASONS

Authors

1 Dept. Plant Prod., Fac. Environ. Agric. Sci., Arish Univ., Egypt.

2 Dept. Apiculture Res., Inst. Res. Plant Protec., Centre Agric. Res., Cairo, Egypt.

Abstract

The present study addresses the potential effects of the collection of bee venom from two different subspecies (Carniolan and Italian honeybees) during different seasons (spring, summer, autumn and winter) on the hoarding behavior of honeybees which represented by rate of sugar feed intake consumed by the colonies. The honeybees’ colonies were fed with water and honey syrup (50%) in plastic feeders; 1litter of honey syrup was added to the feeders before and after bee venom collection by 1hr for recording the amount of syrup taken from the feeder. The metabolic sugar consumption of the group was estimated by subtracting the amount consumed from the total honey syrup taken from the feeder. Results showed that, the Italian hybrid showed significant sugar feed intake after bee venom collection than the Carniolan hybrid during winter season followed by the autumn while summer showed the lowest intake rate. The high hording behavior rate in winter may be due to the severe weakness of the colonies and their severe need for the sugary food in such period due to the lack of flowering crops at this time of the year.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Sinai Journal of Applied Sciences
Volume 11, Issue 1 - Serial Number 1
January and February 2022
Pages 49-62

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics