| Annual early spring, honey bee broodless colonies, with the populations of long-livedworkers, recommence rearing brood actively before the foraging season start. However,honey bees have no foraging opportunity on account of inclement weather and less resourcecan be gathered during the early spring. In the practical production, pollen substitutes aresometimes necessary to provide required nutrients to colonies for rearing brood andpopulation growth. The pollen substitutes had not achieved the effect of pollen, therefore, theresearch of scientific pollen substitute becomes very urgent.Part1: Optimal level of protein in pollen substitutes (had no pollen) of honey bee (Apismellifera L.) during the period of spring multiplication. In the early spring,30Apis melliferaL. colonies which had equal size and queen quality were randomly divided into5treatmentgroups and1control group. The treatment groups were fed on experimental diets containingdifferent dietary protein (20.0%,25.0%,30.0%,35.0%,40.0%), and the control group withrape pollen, respectively. The results indicated that,1. The food intake of colonies that fed onrape pollen was significantly higher than the40.0%group (P<0.05).2. The adult beepopulation growth of25.0%group,30.0%group and35.0%group had no significantdifference (P>0.05), but they were all significantly higher than the control group (P<0.05).3.The emergent weight of workers increased firstly, maximum value of35.0%dietary proteinlevel, and then decreased with the increase level of dietary protein.4. There was no obviousdifference in the body protein of the worker bees between the control group and the treatmentgroups which were fed substitute pollen with20%,25%,30%dietary protein levels (P>0.05),the others was significantly higher than the control group (P<0.05), repectively.Part2: Optimal level of protein in pollen substitutes (had pollen) of honey bee (Apismellifera L.) during the period of spring multiplication. In the early spring,25Apis melliferaL. colonies which had equal size and queen quality were randomly divided into1controlgroup and4treatment groups. The treatment groups were fed on experimental dietscontaining different dietary protein (25.0%,29.5%,34.0%,38.5%), and the control groupwith rape pollen, respectively. The sealed brood and population of colonies was checkedevery12d. Before the florescence of the acacia, we observed the emergent worker weight,body protein concentration, midgut proteolytic enzyme activity, hemolymph proteinconcentration, HPG development (6d,12d,18d), and the mRNA level of Vg, CAT, CuZnSOD and MnSOD. The results indicated that:1. After30days, the survival of the34.0%colonieswere the highest during the colonies that were fed pollen substitutes, however, it still wassignificantly lower than the control group (P<0.05).2. The sealed brood and population ofcolonies were significantly influenced by the dietary protein levels (P<0.05); there were nosignificant differences between the control colonies and the34.0%crude protein colonies.3.The emergent weight of34.0%crude protein colonies and the control group had nosignificant difference (P>0.05), the protein concentration of head and thorax capsulesincreased significantly with increasing dietary protein levels (P<0.05).4. The meanhemolymph protein concentration increased with increasing protein levels, and nosignificantly difference was observed from29.5%CP to38.5%CP (P>0.05); following thedietary protein levels increasing, the midgut proteolytic enzyme activity was respectivelyincreased and then decreased.5. The area of HPG acini at29.5%and34.0%CP for6d,12dand18d bees were all larger than the control group.6. Compared with control group, themRNA level of CAT was no significant changes with different dietary protein levels (P>0.05);the mRNA level of Vg had a trend that first increased and then decreased and the34.0%crude protein colonies had the highest mRNA level; the mRNA level of CuZnSOD andMnSOD increased with the increase level of dietary protein and were lower than the controlgroup.7. The cumulative number of workers produced by the colonies ranged from22420to29519, a significant fit, using a quadratic equation estimated maximum population growth tooccur at31.7%crude protein, when the levels of pollen and GE are set at25%and17.5MJ/kg.These results showed that: The population growth, quality and longevity of worker beeswere significantly influenced by the dietary protein levels (P<0.05), and30%-35%wasrecognized as excellent quality pollen sudtitute (had no pollen), the optimal range of pollensudtitute (had pollen) protein level was29.5%-34%. |
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