Honey bee (Apis mellifera jemenitica) colony performance and queen fecundity in response to different nutritional practices

Honey bee colony nutritional dynamics depend on the availability of floral resources throughout a countryside with varying forage circumstances. Few studies quantify the queen fecundity and colony performance about certain management approaches on a broad scale. The present study was conducted to investigate the queen bee fecundity and various colony performance parameters in response to different nutritional practices, i.e., Group-I, supplied with sucrose solution (1:1; w/v), Group-II, provided with locally available commercial pollen substitute, Group-III, supplied with both sucrose solution + locally available commercial pollen substitute, and Group-IV without any sugar solution and pollen substitute. Our results demonstrated that eggs laid by queen bees were significantly higher (1241.83 ± 46.24) in Group-III than in other groups over the time of observations. Similarly, a significant difference was noticed in the mean sealed worker brood area and honey store area between the different groups of management practices. Both, the max mean sealed worker brood area (2153.53 ± 29.18 cm²) and max mean honey store area (1713.33 ± 12.06 cm²) were observed in Group-III while, the mini mean sealed worker brood area (1066.53 ± 20.18 cm²) and mini mean honey store area (1058.86 ± 4.07 cm²) were observed in Group-IV. In contrast, a non-significant difference was observed in pollen stores between Group-II and Group-III (p > 0.005). Current findings add to our understanding of the mechanisms that underpin large-scale controlled colony performance when the natural pollens resources are insufficient.