Nutritional Aspects of Pollen Diets and Evaluation of the Acceptance of Pollen Diets by Honey Bees

Abstract

The exotic honeybee Apis mellifera L. provides highly valued pollination services for a wide variety of agricultural crops and ranks as the single pollinator for crops most frequently worldwide. In Himachal Pradesh, bee keeping relies on the migration of bee colonies to other states by beekeepers, particularly during winters, due to the scarcity of bee flora. Thus, to keep honeybee colonies strong during dearth periods, indigenous alternative pollen sources need to be evaluated as a part of good management practices for beekeeping. The studies were carried out at the experimental farm and laboratory of Apiculture of the Department of Entomology, Dr. Y.S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan (H.P.) from 2020--2021. Various ingredients, such as defatted soya flour, wheat flour, yeast, gram powder, skim milk, various grain flour, sugar, honey, and water, were used. These mixtures were used at different ratios to evaluate their influence on colony parameters, e.g., the brood area, honey store, pollen store, and honeybee-strength of A. mellifera. The colonies were fed various pollen diets via the frame feeding method at 14-day intervals during the rainy-autumn and spring-summer seasons.