While proper colony management helps ensure adequate honey reserves, sometimes additional carbohydrate feeding may be required – particularly before or after flower bloom, or during prolonged rainy weather periods.
Studies conducted on early spring supplementary feeding have examined its impact on colony strength. Positive effects have been noted, such as an increase in sealed brood area and egg production from queen.
Contents
Protein
Honey bees consume an abundance of proteins (amino acids), carbohydrates (sugars), lipids (fatty acids and sterols), vitamins, minerals (salts) and water as part of their natural diet. All nutrients must be present in specific amounts for optimal nutrition.
Nectar is the primary source of carbohydrates for honey bee diet. Bees collect nectar through their proboscis and store it in their “crop”, an organ located between their midgut where digestion takes place and the crop itself – this structure serves to keep sugar in her crop when foragers need energy during a journey home, filter pollen out from syrup as needed, and prevent backflow into their midgut from returning back out through its one-way valve system.
Carbohydrates can be effective at stimulating queen bees to start laying eggs, and providing short-term survival when honey reserves are low, but cannot provide continued egg laying or brood rearing without sufficient protein supplementation or feeding options. Numerous carb diets have been studied by researchers; none has proven capable of meeting honey bee colonies’ protein requirements.
Carbohydrate
Honey bee diets contain proteins (amino acids), carbohydrates (sugars) lipids (fats), vitamins and minerals. All must be present in appropriate proportions for proper nutrition.
When pollen contains four percent isoleucine while another type only two percent, bees must consume twice as much of the former type to achieve four percent isoleucine content (Stace 1996). This results in wasted protein that may endanger colony health.
Carbs are converted to body fat by the liver and stored for later use; they also serve as the main energy reserve of bee colonies.
Kumari and Kumar (2000) tested different kinds of carbohydrate-containing feeds on Apis mellifera. They developed and fed a diet containing defatted soy flour, parched gram and brewer yeast as part of a subtropical Himalayan region diet to Apis mellifera colonies; their results demonstrated that Apis mellifera consumed it similarly to natural pollen while outperforming Bee-Pro (supplementary diet) when measured for sealed brood area and honey production.
Nutrient Supplements
Quality protein supplements and sugar syrup are crucial to bee health. Diets containing pure glucose lose water rapidly, becoming difficult for bees to consume. Diets made with fructose-glucose mixes tend to be softer, making eating easier for bees.
Supplemental feeding supplements contain proteins, amino acids, vitamins and minerals to supplement brood rearing efforts, queen performance and honey yields after drought periods. Studies have demonstrated the positive impacts supplemental feeding can have on brood rearing, queen performance and honey production after dearth periods.
Studies have demonstrated that diets containing protein supplements increase consumption and brood areas within colonies receiving them, yet these studies do not account for all the variables that impact colony health and development, therefore making a careful examination of an entire colony necessary in evaluating any additional feeding during a dearth period.
Pollen
Pollen is an invaluable source of lipids and minerals (calcium, chlorine, iron, magnesium potassium phosphorus phosphorus sulfur silicon zinc). Furthermore, pollen’s anti-inflammatory activity comes from its fatty acids inhibiting enzymes called cyclooxygenases and lipoxygenases which produce leukotrienes which cause acute or chronic inflammatory conditions.
Supplementary feeding diets have been designed using various combinations of ingredients such as black gram, brewer’s yeast, sugar syrup and various nutritional sources such as lentil flour, soybean flour, bread yeast, wheat gluten, parched mung bean parchment meal guar meal skim milk powder fish meal that have all shown promising results on various colony parameters such as brood rearing, sealed brood area coverage and honey yield post dearth period. These have been successfully implemented into bee colonies and showed promising results with regard to brood rearing, sealed brood area coverage as well as honey yield post dearth period.
However, one of the drawbacks of this method is attracting robber bees, leading to pollen robbing and subsequent loss. Furthermore, parasites and diseases could spread easily via this robbing, necessitating controlled usage of this supplement feeding to avoid robbing. To maximize pollen productivity under optimal conditions and limit parasite spread robbing must also be implemented judiciously and under controlled conditions if using this supplemental feeding strategy.
