Queen excluders enhance honey production in African honey bees, Apis mellifera, by limiting brood rearing during peak nectar flow

Journal Article

Ghamdi, Ahmad Al Khazim Al . 2013

• المجلة \ الصحيفة: Journal of Apicultural Research
• رقم العدد: 5
• رقم الإصدار السنوي: 52
• الصفحات: 184-189

مستخلص المنشور

The African and temperate European races of honey bees, Apis mellifera, differ significantly in the extent to which they invest their basic resources. The former group of bees exhibit adaptations geared toward brood rearing and subsequent reproductive swarming; while the latter, towards massive storage of resources (Hepburn and Radloff, 1998). It has been inferred that tropical bees are continuously selected to invest more in brood rearing to compensate for losses as a result of predator and climatic pressures (Seeley, 1985). Indeed, African races of A. mellifera can raise 50% more broods than European bees in hives of an identical volume over the same time period (Ruttner, 1988). Conversely, the same amount of honey that can be obtained in six weeks during a favourable summer in temperate regions may require six months in tropical Africa (Douhet, 1979; 1980), which also reflects fundamental differences in the utilisation of incoming resources.