Mengzi Eastern And Western Honeybee Product Differentiation And Pollen Analysis

Apis cerana is the major native honeybee species to China. A. mellifera which is native to Europea and Africa was introduced into China in late19th century for its property of high output of bee product. In this paper, we compared the sensory properties and chemical and physical indexes of products with honey, beeswax and royal jelly between A. cerana and A. mellifera. Overlap and competition on the nutritional niche between A. cerana and A. mellifera were studied by analyzed the melissopalynology and tropic niche.Through sensory analysis, chemical and physical analysis, honey samples collected from the same place at one time were tested and it is determined there are difference between the honey samples gotten from A. cerana and A. mellifera.(1) Honey:the colour of honey samples from A. cerana was darker than that of honey samples from A. mellifera, the odor of honey samples was stronger than that from A. mellifera; The water content, ash content, acid, sucrose content and fructose content of honey samples from A. cerana is higher while the pH, deoxidized carbohydrate content, and diastase activity of honey samples from A. mellifera is higher; the scavenging ability of·OH, reducing power and total phenols content of honey samples from A. cerana was better than A. mellifera, and the scavenging ability of DPPH-was opposite.(2) Beeswax:beeswax of A.cerana had the thicker aroma and deeper color, fewer impurities, more13.24mg KOH/g ester value, less12.86mg KOH/g acid value and0.65g I2/100g iodine value than beeswax of A. mellifera.(3) Royal jells:five index of royal jelly from A. mellifera higher than samples from A.cerana, which were amino acid score, chemical score, essential amino acid index, biological value and nutritional index, and the amino acid ratio was opposite, sulfur-containing amino acid was the first limiting amino acid in two royal jelly samples.The proportion and amount of pollen in the honey samples from two different bee species were mensurated through melissopalynology analysis, the result showed that:in the period of non-nectar flow, the number of nectar plant species collected by A. cerana was7.44, it was no significant difference in7.56(P>0.05) collected by A. mellifera. The trophic niche breadth of A. cerana was0.65, it was higher than 0.57of A. mellifera. Trophic niche overlap index between the two bee species was0.61and the interspecific competition index was0.77. In the period of pomegranate nectar flow, the number of nectar plant species collected by A. cerana was8.13, it was significantly higher than6(P<0.05) collected by A. mellifera. The trophic niche breadth of A. cerana was0.41, it was higher than0.24of A. mellifera. Trophic niche overlap index between the two bee species was0.68and the interspecific competition index was0.92. It showed that A. cerana could utilize more nectar plants than A. mellifera ligustica.. The niche breadth of A. mellifera is less wide than that of A. cerana which means that A. mellifera make pollen foraging more fastidiously than A. cerana and A. cerana can utilize more sorts of nectar-plant. It also meant that the food competition between A. cerana and A. mellifera was fierce, and in the period of non-nectar flow, the food competition was more fierce.