Motivation of Honey Bee, Apis mellifera, Colonies to Draw out Wax Foundations and to Build Combs

Abstract

Replacement of old-dark combs is an important practice to eliminate comb contaminants, control brood diseases, and provide new combs for exportation. There are several reasons affect drawn out of beeswax foundations and brood distribution in many apiaries. Therefore, this work designed to specify some characteristics of wax combs naturally built by local honey bees, to develop paint materials to motivate bee workers to build wax foundations and to determine if foundation quality and removal degree of brood combs influence speed of drawing out foundations, brood rearing and brood survival rate. The maximum variation between colonies in characteristics of naturally building combs were 0.78, 0.20, 0.55mm, and 32.75mm 3 for wax cell length, width, depth, and size, respectively. Beeswax paints with lemon, rose and coconut oils exceeded control in build foundations by 25.33, 8.00 and 3.66%, respectively. The removal degree of brood combs was consistent with significant increase in drawing out foundations as the removal degrees increased. High quality beeswax foundations (10% paraffin) were significantly more acceptable and drawn out rapidly by workers than low ones by adulterated (50% paraffin) after 24 and 48 hours. The same pattern was obtained for brood rearing activity after 12 and 24 days, but brood rearing activity in combs built on low quality foundations after 24 days did not significantly differ when 2 or 3 brood combs removed. However, using low quality foundations resulted in significantly lower brood survival rate than the high ones after 12 and 24 days, regardless removal degrees of brood combs.