The Effect Of Different Saccharides On Honeybee Food Consumption? Gut Bacteria And Index Of Antioxidant

Honeybees(Apis spp.) are the most important pollinators, they bring a big economic benefits not only for the beekeeing industry but also for agriculture, meanwhile, they play an important role in ecology. However, the last few decades have seen a great number of honeybee colonies losses. Honeybees are facing a myriad of challenges today from interacting stressors, including diseases, parasitic mites, and pesticides, aswell as substandard diets.Thus the nutrition and health condition of the honeybee colony were widely concerned and investigated. During the periods lack of nectar, sucrose was used as the main food for the bees. Compared with sucrose, high fructose corn syrup has several advantages, such as lower price, easy to store and feed, yet its safety has not been adequately investigated. Microbial of the gut and antioxidant level are considered colosely linked with bees'health. So in order to investigate the effect of HFCS on colony health, in this study, based on the bees consumption amount changes, and the specificity of 16S rRNA sequence was amplified using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) technology, the structure and diversity intestinal bacterial community changes were analyzed. Breeding and sampling was divided into two parts, bees were kept in incubator and natural colonies. Each part was divided into three treatments with 50%(w/v)sugar compounds solution(HFCS, sucrose, honey, respectively). Samples were collected from the incubator for DGGE process. Different stages of honeybee larvae and pupae samples were collected from the natural colonies for the protein content and activity of total superoxide dismutase analysis. The main results are as follows:1. The food consumption of honey group was significantly different from the other two groups that were no distinct in each stage. The amount of food consumption were increased with age.The correlation coefficient of honey group, sucrose group, HFCS group were 0.93, 0.70,0.54, respectively.2. By DGGE and 16S rRNA gene analysis,16 strains of bacteria were isolated from the Italy bee (Apis mellifera) gut. They were maily from Gamma-1 (Gilliamella apicola), Gamma-2 (Frischellaperrara), Beta (Snodgrassella.alvi), Lactobacillus, Enterobacter aerogenes (enteroaerogen) and Serratia. Different feeding groups of intestinal microbial community structure were distinct, so was dynamic change. HFCS group held abundant bacterial species, during the whole stage its diversity index was kept in a higher level, the development rate was faster and its stability was much better than that of the other two groups. In DGGE test, HFCS group exhibited more band numbers than honey group (P<0.05), and significantly more bands than sucrose group (P< 0.05)at 20d stage. The surcose fed group had more bands at 3d stage,but with less bands at all of the rest stage than the HFCS group, the difference was not significant (P>0.05). Honey and sucrose group were not significantly different during all of the development stages(P>0.05).3. Protein content and T-SOD activity of the larvae and pupa were studied. The results show that the larvae and pupae protein content decreased with growing date. The difference in larvae protein content at 6 instar larvae (L6) period was significantly higher than honey group and sucrose group (P<0.05). When got into the pre pupa period (PP) was significantly lower compared with honey group (P<0.05). In the L6 period, There was significant effect of T-SOD activity between honey group with HFCS and sucrose group. But honey group T-SOD activity was significantly lower than the other two groups (P<0.05) when pupae appeared white eye (P1).Theses results show that the bees accept HFCS no different with surcose. HFCS for bee did not affect honeybees' gut microbes adversely, even contributed to the development and stability of intestinal microflora. HFCS did not show negative effect on growth and antioxidant properties of larvae and pupae. so it could be used by beekeepers to feed honeybee colonies as a carbohydrate source during the period lack of nectar.