SUPPLEMENT FEEDING FOR HONEYBEES CONGENIAL TO BEE POPULATION AND PRODUCTION OF BEE POLLEN, HONEY AND PUMPKIN IN SANDBAR CROPPING SYSTEM

Abstract

An experiment was conducted in pumpkin fields at sandbar area of Brahmaputra river fully composed of sandy soil flowing near the Kurigram district of Bangladesh during winter of 2017 to investigate the role of supplement feeding on bee population, bee visit rate, fruit succession rate, pollen and honey production. Apis mellifera L. honeybee colonies were prepared with 6 frames of covering bees with broods and a queen of similar quality each of five different supplemental feedings: i) syrup- 1 (White Sugar: Water = 2:1) ii) syrup-2 (White Sugar: Water = 1.5:1); iii) syrup -3 (White Sugar: Water = 1:1); iv) syrup-4 (Brown Sugar: Water = 2:1); and v) no supplement food (control) were placed inside the hive in a division board feeder @ 30 ml per frame of honeybees per day at an interval of 3 days. The highest number of brood cells was observed in the colonies fed with syrup-1 and helped to increase the brood cells 385.03% and 351.54% but only 57.33% and 51.18% brood cells increased in control after 15 and 30 days of experimentation, respectively. The highest amount of honey (1110g/colony) produced from the colonies fed with syrup-1 but the least (430g/colony) quantity of honey collected from the control colonies. The colonies provided with brown sugar syrup also yielded the significant amount of honey (640 g/colony) in comparison with control colonies. The supplemental food also influenced the pollen correction and the colonies fed with syrup2 yielded the highest amount of pollen (2.615g) followed by syrup-1 (2.3g) but syrup-3 provided the least amount of pollen (0.91g). Bee’s visitation frequency to pumpkin flowers were varied by supplemental foods. The highest visitation frequency (0.26) was found at 15 DAT in control colonies and the lowest visitation rate (0.18) was observed when bees fed with syrup-3. On the other hand, maximum (0.57) and minimum (0.26) visitation rate was observed at 30 DAT when bees fed with syrup-3 and syrup-2, respectively. The variations observed in bee-supplemented and non supplemented fields and the highest (45) fruit succession rate was found in the field adjacent to the colonies treated by syrup-2 followed by syrup-4 while the lowest number (18.05) of fruits was yielded from the non supplemented fields. The results clearly indicated that there was a great role of supplemented food to the bee colonies on all tested parameters specially increased bee populations, yield of pumpkin, honey and pollen production.