Efeito de fontes energéticas sobre a longevidade de abelhas (Apis melífera L.) em condições controladas.

Abstract

Beekeeping is an activity that depends on several factors among them the environment. In times where the food for bees is scarce it is necessary to opt for artificial feeding, where it is necessary to know the foods that will be offered the bees. This research was aimed at evaluating the influence of energy supply sources on the longevity of worker bees (Apis honeybee L.) in vitro. The energy sources evaluated were the mixture of pollen (10%) and icing sugar (90%), only icing sugar (100%), a mixture of pollen (10%) and honey (90%) and icing sugar (90%) and honey (10%). Freshly-emerged bees were collected from honeycombs and placed in groups of 20 bees in wood cages, with controlled environment, where the due feeds were served and recorded the survey of the number of dead bees daily The work was conducted in fully randomized experimental design, with four treatments x six repetitions. The survival analysis of worker bees was performed using the Kaplan-Meier method with obtaining survival curves through the Graph Pad Prism ® 7 software with application of the non-parametric test Log-Rank test in the comparison of curves. The results showed that the feeding of the pollen mixture (10%) and sugar (90%) was the one that provided the best results in relation to the longevity of the bees, as opposed to feeding only sugar where it presented the lowest longevity index.