Evaluation of royal jelly quality and queens production by using natural food supplements in honeybee colonies

Abstract

The queen's production is one of the important and sensitive processes in beekeeping and certainly depended on royal jelly quality which plays an effective role in queen difference and vitality. This work suggested a novel plant feed supplements to improve royal jelly quality and enhance the vitality of newly emerged queens. Equal aliquots of Mahlab seed kernel powder (Prunus mahaleb L.)and date palm pollen (Phoenix dactylifera L.) were provided into colonies in a sugar patty formula for seven days before queen grafting and along for 21 days of the experiment compared to a traditional pollen patty and control sugar syrup. The supplemented patty recorded higher consumption rate of (85.44%) compared to the pollen patty (45.54%). Moreover, the new supplements showed the highest rate of queen acceptance and emergence percent compared to colonies fed on the pollen patty and syrup only. Regarding the new virgin queens' parameters, plant supplements lead to an increase in body and ovary weights to (0.2250 and 0.00562 g respectively) over those of traditional pollen patty (0.1826 and 0.00495 g) and control sugar syrup (0.1439 ±0.00414 g) likewise, an increase in the ovarioles number was detected. Moreover,a protective effect on DNA in ovary cells was recorded by agarose gel fragmentation analysis with the plant supplement group compared to the other groups. The SDS-PAGE analysis of royal jelly showed an improvement in protein quality and quantity with supplemented feeding patty. So, we can recommend the tested plant supplements to enhance royal jelly and queens' production qualities.

Investigation of Yield and Some Quality Features of Royal Jelly Harvested from Honeybee Colonies Fed with Food Substitutes

“…(2005) research and the average amount of royal jelly produced by the queen cells in our research may be due to the fact that fewer queen cells were distributed to the colonies in our study. Sakla and El-Shafeiy (2022) found that the quality of royal jelly produced from colonies fed with pollen and plant-supported supplementary feed formula is superior to that created from colonies fed with sugar syrup; therefore, the quality of the reared queen bees reared is greater.…”

EFFECT OF REARING SEASON ON QUEEN AND THE REPRODUCTION OF <i>APIS MELLIFERA CARNICA</i> AND A <i>MELLIFERA LIGUSTICA</i>

“…The quality of the queen, which is defined by the number of ovarioles in ovaries and the size of spermatheca, is a significant factor in the strength and production of the colony. Producing one's own queen under the right circumstances take long time and also queens thus produced in a year may have varied qualities (Sakla and El-shafeiy, 2022). This study investigates the physiological and reproductive traits of the hybrid queens of Apis mellifera carnica and A. m. ligustica.…”