Crude protein and amino acid composition of honey bee-collected pollen pellets from south-east Australia and a note on laboratory disparity

Somerville, Doug; Nicol, H. I.

doi:10.1071/ea03188

Cited by 117 publications

(115 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…The protein content of bee-collected sunflower pollen appears to be deficient and at the bottom of the range for the five major species. Data obtained in the present study confirm the findings of Somerville and Nicol (2006) in Australia, Pernal and Currie (2000) in Canada, Tasei and Aupinel (2008) in France, Nicolson and Human (2013) in South Africa who also found low protein content in bee-collected sunflower pollen. The protein level (18.14% DM) in bee-collected rape pollen was lower than that obtained by Pernal and Currie (2000) in Canada.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

Chemical Composition and Amounts of Mineral Elements in Honeybee-Collected Pollen in Relation to Botanical Origin

Taha

2015

Journal of Apicultural Science

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A b s t r a c t This study was conducted at the apiary of the Agricultural and Veterinary Training and Research Station, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia. The purpose was to study the relationship between the botanical origin and chemical composition of bee-collected pollen. The amount of mineral elements present in bee-collected pollen was also studied. The composition of pollen loads showed the maximum contents of dry matter, ash, glucose, fructose, magnesium (Mg), phosphorus (P), and manganese (Mn) for the date palm; the maximum contents of protein, calcium (Ca), and zinc (Zn) for alfalfa; the maximum contents of fiber, and copper (Cu) for the sunflower; the maximum contents of the lipids and iron (Fe) for summer squash; and the maximum contents of sodium (Na), and potassium (K) for rape. Calcium was found to be correlated in a significantly (p<0.01) positive way with K, Na, Mg, P, Mn, and Zn. Copper, though, was correlated in a significantly (p<0.01) negative way with Ca, Mg, P, Mn, and Zn. The high levels of protein, ash, glucose, and fructose, and low lipid content found in bee-pollen from the date palm and from alfalfa, mean that pollen from the date palm and from alfalfa make an excellent food supplement. It was concluded, that the chemical composition of beecollected pollen can be correlated with the plant species from which pollen was collected.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

Chemical Composition and Amounts of Mineral Elements in Honeybee-Collected Pollen in Relation to Botanical Origin

Taha

2015

Journal of Apicultural Science

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“…Cappelari et al (2009) also reported that Africanized bees developed higher protein levels in the hemolymph than European bees fed the same diet, suggesting more efficient metabolism of ingested nutrients. In the field experiments, the high-protein diets also increased colony growth parameters during periods of scarcity of pollen resources, as also reported by Mattila and Otis (2006) and Somerville and Nicol (2006). Garcia et al (1986) supplied various protein foods with 20, 30 and 40% crude protein; they found that crude protein negatively influences food collection.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 59%

Protein levels and colony development of Africanized and European honey bees fed natural and artificial diets

Morais

Turcatto²,

Pereira³

et al. 2013

Genet. Mol. Res.

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ABSTRACT. Pollen substitute diets are a valuable resource for maintaining strong and health honey bee colonies. Specific diets may be useful in one region or country and inadequate or economically unviable in others. We compared two artificial protein diets that had been formulated from locally-available ingredients in Brazil with bee bread and a nonprotein sucrose diet. Groups of 100 newly-emerged, adult workers of Africanized honey bees in Brazil and European honey bees in the USA were confined in small cages and fed on one of four diets for seven days. The artificial diets included a high protein diet made of soy milk powder and albumin, and a lower protein level diet consisting of soy milk powder, brewer's yeast and rice bran. The initial protein levels in newly emerged bees were approximately 18-21 µg/µL hemolymph. After feeding on the diets for seven days, the protein levels in the hemolymph were similar among the protein diet groups (~37-49 µg/µL after seven days), although Africanized bees acquired higher protein levels, increasing 145 and 100% on diets D1 and D2, respectively, versus 83 and 60% in the European bees. All the protein diets resulted in significantly higher levels of protein than sucrose solution alone. In the field, the two pollen substitute diets were tested during periods of low pollen availability in the field in two regions of Brazil. Food consumption, population development, colony weight, and honey production were evaluated to determine the impact of the diets on colony strength parameters. The colonies fed artificial diets had a significant improvement in all parameters, while control colonies dwindled during the dearth period. We conclude that these two artificial protein diets have good potential as pollen substitutes during dearth periods and that Africanized bees more efficiently utilize artificial protein diets than do European honey bees.

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“…Low levels of total soluble and reducing sugars for pollen pellets of maize were observed. Higher protein contents, over 40%, were found in all four types of Egyptian pollen pellets, which were in agreement with the high protein content of 25.9% in bee pollen, produced in the Southeast of Australia (Somerville and Nicol, 2006). The greatest part of nitrogen content in pollen was in the protein fraction, this being the second most abundant group of nutrients, after the carbohydrates.…”

Section: General Chemical Analysissupporting

confidence: 67%

“…Therefore, proteins of pollen pellets were fractionated and investigated for their ratio. As stated by Somerville and Nicol (2006), the crude protein levels, of all pollen pellets analysed, ranged from 9.2% (Hypochoeris radicata) to 37.4% (Echium plantagineum), with a mean of 25.9%. Therefore, honey proteins could be used as chemical markers of the floral origin of honey (Baroni et al, 2002) or for higher levels of valuable minerals (Stanciu et al, 2011).…”

Section: General Chemical Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Indexing and Environmental Risk of Allergenic Protein Subunits of Egyptian Pollens

Afify

2014

Not Sci Biol

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Abstract AbstractFour Egyptian pollen pellets: sunflower, clover, maize and broad beans, were evaluated for environmental risk of allergenic protein subunits, indexing amino acids, as well as nucleic acids contents. Protein fractions were subsequently extracted as albumin, globulin, urea and SDS-soluble proteins, by different methods. The results showed that albumin and globulin fractions represent the major constituents in different pollen pellets and amounted 33.24-40.3% and 32.57-37.22% respectively. SDS soluble protein showed minor amount. The electrophoretic separation of albumin and globulin extracts of sunflower pollen showed the presence of 8 protein subunits, which varied in their molecular weight between 4-67 KiloDalton (KDa); allergic protein subunits with MW 35 and 45 KDa were identified in all pollen pellets tested. Indexing and general analysis of the four pollen pellets showed that carbohydrates ranged from 28.12 (maize) to 36.12 (sunflower), while total chlorophyll ranged from 5.85 (broad bean) to 6.07 (maize) mg/100 g fresh weight. It is also clear that the protein content of pollen pellets is above 40% and therefore they could be considered as a protein rich source. Broad bean pellets had the highest amount of protein content (48.31%). The lipid content ranged from 4.47 to 15.7%, according to pollen source. All pollen pellets contained relatively high quantities of RNA, which are nearly three times the equivalent of DNA content. Relative values of total free amino acids of four pollens were considerably low (below 20%) and ranged from 2.93 ± 0.089 (sunflower) to 15.99 ± 0.015 µmol/ mg fw (broad beans).

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Crude protein and amino acid composition of honey bee-collected pollen pellets from south-east Australia and a note on laboratory disparity

Cited by 117 publications

References 6 publications

Chemical Composition and Amounts of Mineral Elements in Honeybee-Collected Pollen in Relation to Botanical Origin

Chemical Composition and Amounts of Mineral Elements in Honeybee-Collected Pollen in Relation to Botanical Origin

Protein levels and colony development of Africanized and European honey bees fed natural and artificial diets

Indexing and Environmental Risk of Allergenic Protein Subunits of Egyptian Pollens

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