Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
Department of Economic Entomology & Pesticides, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt
2
Department of Pomology, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt
3
Department of Beekeeping, Plant Protection Research Institute, Agriculture Research Center, Ministry of Agriculture, Giza, Egypt.
Abstract
The activity of honey bee foragers in collecting pollen, nectar or both from flowers of three plum, (Prunus sp.) cultivars (cvs.) was investigated during the flowering season of two successive years,(2012 &2013) on plum orchard at El-Qalubia Governorate, Egypt. In general, Hollywood plum cultivar was significantly more attractant to bee foragers than Santarosa and Golden Japanese cvs.,during two studied seasons. For all studied cultivars, honeybee workers visited flowers throughout the day time with highest activity at 2 p.m. Highest percentage of pollen gathered was recorded on flowers of Hollywood cultivar 37.7% & 35.4%, followed by Golden Japanese 29.9% & 28.2% then Santarosa flowers 26.1% & 27.4% during the two seasons, respectively. Activity of pollen collection was concentrated in the early time of day for all cultivars with the highest peak at 11 a.m., (mean of 40.9%), while the lowest value was 20.4% at 5 p.m. In the other hand, Golden Japanese flowers were significantly attracted the nectar foragers than Santarosa and Hollywood flowers through the two seasons, (37.3% & 36.4%; 34.8% & 33.1% and 28.0% & 27.6% for the previous plum cultivars, respectively). Nectar gathering activity by honeybee from all plum cultivars was strongly concentrated in the second half of day time with a highest mean percentage (43.0%) at 2 p.m.
The collection of both nectar and pollen in the same trip by one forager was also observed on the three studied plum cultivars during the two seasons of study. Santarosa flowers attained the first rank encouraging honeybee workers for gathering the both types of food, (39.3%) followed by (35.6%) for Hollywood and (34.2%) for Golden Japanese, (as a mean of two seasons). The more favorite time for this activity pattern is early morning, (44.3%) or late afternoon, (41.8%) with no significant difference between them as a mean of two successive seasons.
Keywords
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