Strong Impact of Five Genetic and Non-genetic Factors Exerting Their Effects on Honey bee Queens to Increase Bee honey Production

Citation: Egypt. Acad. J. Biolog. Sci. (A. Entomology) Vol.8 (2)pp.59-64(2015) Egyptian Academic Journal of Biological Sciences is the official English language journal of the Egyptian Society for Biological Sciences, Department of Entomology, Faculty of Sciences Ain Shams University. Entomology Journal publishes original research papers and reviews from any entomological discipline or from directly allied fields in ecology, behavioral biology, physiology, biochemistry, development, genetics, systematics, morphology, evolution, control of insects, arachnids, and general entomology. www.eajbs.eg.net Provided for non-commercial research and education use. Not for reproduction, distribution or commercial use.


INTRODUCTION
According to recent studies (Mahbobi et al., 2014;Ahmad et al. 2013;and Büchler et al. 2013) production of honey bee colony depends on a number of genetic and non-genetic factors.Thus, obtaining a significant improvement in weight of stored honey necessitates detailed investigation of as many as possible of genetic and nongenetic factors exerting effects on bee queen raising practices of beekeepers.
The present work involved five experiments aimed to evaluate the impact of race, larval age, diet, colony strength and the adult worker age on increasing the ultimate weight of stored honey.

Location of the experiments
The five experiments included in the present study were conducted at the apiary belonging to the University of Ain Shams Faculty of Agriculture Experimental Station of Shalaquan at Qualubiya Governorate, where the bee colonies used were headed with open mated local carniolan queens, Apis mellifera carnica.

The targeted dependent variable used for all the five experiments
This variable is the weight of stored bee honey in colonies with queens considered at the end of the blooming season for two sources: citrus trees and clover plants.
The weight of the stored bee honey was calculated from the estimated area of comb honey, as follows.

The independent variable and its levels for each of the five experiments 3-Experiment (1):
The following two honey bee races were considered: (i) the Carniolan bee, Apis mellifera carnica and (ii) the Italian bee, Apis mellifera ligustica.
Each race contained 3 queens while each queen was put on a colony containing 5 combs of relatively equivalent strength.

Experiment (2):
The following four larval age groups were used to obtain queens by the grafting method: (i) the12 hr old group, (ii) the 24 hr old group, (iii) the 36 hr old group and (iv) the 48 hr old group.Each larval age group contained three queens, while each queen was put on one hive with 5 combs covered with bees.

Experiment (3):
The following three diet groups were considered to obtain queens: (i) the pollen cake plus 5% thymol group: (the pollen cake is a mix of poll engrains, sugar powder and warm water at a ratio of 3:3:1, respectively.),(ii) the pollen cake group and (iii) the sugar solution group.Each diet group contained three queens, while each queen was put on a hive with 5 combs covered with bees.

Experiment (4):
The following three honey bee colony strength groups were considered to obtain queens: (i) the nine comb group, (ii) the six comb group and (iii) the three comb group.
Each group contained three queens, while each queen was put on a hive.

Experiment (5):
The following two adult worker age groups were considered to rear the queens: (i) the nurse worker group and (ii) the field worker group.Each group contained three queens, while each queen was put on a hive.

Impact of increasing the race quality
Table (1) shows that the passage from the Carniolan race to the Italian increased (p<0.05) the quantity of honey by 33.9% in the case of citrus honey and by 60.5% in the case of clover honey.This could be explained by the superior number of ovarioles and brood cells known to characterize the Italian race.Zaitoun et al. (2009) recorded, for the entire April season, 5300 and 4500 brood cells for Apis mellifera ligustica and Apis mellifera syriaca, respectively.Al-Ghazawi and Zaitoun (2008), comparing queen honeybees of the Italian race Apis mellifera ligustica with the Surian race Apis mellifera syriaca in terms of queen rearing season, queens weight, acceptance, preoviposition period, volume of the spermatheca with the quantity and quality of sperms, showed the Italian race to be superior to the Syrian race.In their earlier work, Hauser & Lensky (1994) reported the high quality of the Italian bee race, Apis mellifera ligustica in terms of nectar collection and, hence, honey yields.Impact of decreasing the larval age at grafting: Table (2) shows that the weight of stored honey increased with the step-wise decrease in the age of larvae from 48 to 36 hours then from 36 to 24 hours and from 24 to 12 hours by 2.0, 2.2 and 58.1%, respectively, in citrus honey and by 19.7, 71.4 and 61.8%, respectively, in clover honey.This could be explained by the fact that more royal jelly was fed by the younger larvae than by the older larvae, so that the queens reared from the younger larvae were heavier in weight, with larger number of ovarioles, higher quantity of produced brood and increased bee population (workers), resulting in greater amounts of collected nectar and stored honey.Mahbobi et al. (2014) found that the most efficient colonies were headed by queens reared from 1 day-old larvae which were superior to queens reared from 3 day-old larvae by 18% in brood production, 40% in bee population and 54% in honey production.It is well known that newly emerged queens from the younger larvae are heavier than those emerging from older ones.Gengerr et al. (2000) found that the queens reared from1-day-old larvae were significantly (P<0.01)heavier than those from 2-day-old larvae.

Impact of empowering diets
Table (3) shows that the step-wise passage from colonies with queens produced from colonies fed sugar solution to pollen cake then to pollen cake + 5% thymol resulted in increase (p<0.05) in quantity of honey by, respectively, 34.9% and 69.2% in citrus honey and by, respectively, 17.2% and 4.1%, in clover honey.Previous literature indicated that intensified protein sources would improve characteristics of the emerged queens.Mahbobi et al. (2014) found that the supplemental feeding of rearing colonies increased brood production by 11%, bee population by 16% and honey production by 15%.Tharwat et al. (2002) reported that feeding on orange juice, carrot juice and propolis combined with sugar syrup resulted in higher body weight, longer and broader fore wings and heavier ovaries of emerged queens as compared to those fed sugar alone.Sena et al. (2012) indicated that feeding supplemental pollen to honey bee colonies improved their performance.Estegamat and Gholami (2010) highlighted the increased rate of acceptance of new queens as a result of supplementation of syrup, nectar or pollen.Gengerr et al. (2000) found that supplemental feeding of rearing colonies significantly improved the acceptance rate of grafted larvae and the length and volume of queen cells.

Impact of using higher colony strength
Table ( 4), shows that raising the colony strength from 3 to 6 combs and then from 6 to 9 combs resulted in weight increase of honey of, respectively, 86.5% and 26% in citrus honey and of, respectively, 32.6% and 26.0% in clover honey.This could be explained by the fact that as the number of workers raises the quantity of royal jelly secreted from glands in their heads to feed the larval queens increases.Thus, the queens produced from colonies with large number of bees are heavier than those produced from colonies with fewer workers.Durmus andGuler (1999) andRana et al. (1996) highlighted the positive role played by the colony strength in royal jelly production.Büchler et al. (2013) emphasized the dependence of success and quality of queen production on strong, well fed and healthy nurse colonies.

Impact of decreasing the adult worker age
Table ( 5), shows that the weight of honey increased (p<0.05) while passing from colonies with queens reared through field workers to colonies with queens reared through nurse workers by 50% in citrus honey and 90.8% in clover honey.It is well known that the glands of royal jelly in 6-12 day old workers are more active in secretion as compared with the older workers, so that the queens reared by nurse workers are heavier in weight and greater in number of ovarioles as compared with queens produced from colonies with field workers.

Table 1 :
Weight (gm)of stored honey in citrus and clover seasons from colonies with queens produced from two races (Means ± S.E.).

Table 2 :
Weight (gm)of stored honey in citrus and clover seasons from colonies with queens produced :means with the same superscript in the same column were not significantly different (p<0.05) *

Table 3 :
Weight (gm)of stored honey in citrus and clover seasons from colonies with queens produced from colonies fed three diets (Means ± S.E) * .:means with the same superscript in the same column were not significantly different (p<0.05) *

Table 4 :
Weight (gm)of stored honey in citrus and clover seasons from colonies with queens produced :means with the same superscript in the same column were not significantly different (p<0.05) *

Table 5 :
Weight (gm)of stored honey in citrus and clover season from colonies with queens reared by workers of two ages (Means ± S.E.)