0 avis
Effects of diets containing different concentrations of pollen and pollen substitutes on physiology, Nosema burden, and virus titers in the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.)
Archive ouverte
Edité par CCSD ; Springer Verlag -
International audience. AbstractColonies of Apis mellifera provided with natural forage show decreased pathogen loads and increased overwintering success when compared with colonies provisioned with supplemental protein diets. Despite the potential benefits of a pollen-based diet, protein supplements are commonly used in colonies throughout the spring and increasingly through the fall and winter as the cost of pollen is greater than that of supplements and concerns exist over the potential for pollen to vector viruses to bee colonies. In this study, we compare virus and Nosema burden, consumption and digestion, hemolymph protein and hypopharyngeal gland size in bees fed on pure pollen diets, purely supplemental protein diets, and diets containing 90% supplement and 10% pollen to examine whether the inclusion of small amounts of pollen mitigates the negative impacts of consuming protein supplements seen in preceding studies. We found that the diets had similar concentrations of total soluble protein; however, bees consumed and digested significantly more of the pollen diet than either PS alone or mixed with pollen. In colonies, honeybees consuming pollen had lower deformed wing virus (DWV) and Nosema titers than bees fed protein supplements. The addition of 10% pollen to the supplement significantly increased digestion and hypopharyngeal gland size and decreased levels of Nosema infection over colonies fed supplement alone. These results indicate that the addition of small amounts of pollen into protein supplements may help to mitigate the differences observed between protein supplement and pollen fed bees.
Consulter en ligne
Suggestions
Du même auteur
