Honey Bee Research and Extension Laboratory, Entomology and Nematology Department, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
Statistical Consulting Unit and Agronomy Department, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
J Econ Entomol. 2021 Aug 5;114(4):1421-1430. doi: 10.1093/jee/toab083.
Commercial beekeepers need healthy, productive honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) colonies, even when the landscape lacks adequate pollen forage to sustain the colonies. As a result, many commercial beekeepers spend significant money and labor on the use of pollen substitutes in their colonies. However, there is little consensus in the literature about the benefits and drawbacks of pollen substitute use on honey bee colony health. In order to understand this critically, it is important to know first how honey bees distribute pollen substitute patties throughout their colonies. We traced the fate of three commercially available pollen substitute patties (MegaBee, UltraBee, AP23) dyed with a nontoxic food coloring (Brilliant Blue FCF) and undyed as negative controls, a dyed positive control (fondant), and a dyed consumption control (Crayola Model Magic Clay) in 44 honey bee colonies. Using spectrophotometry and visual inspection, we analyzed adult bee guts, larval guts, bee bread stores and colony debris underneath the hive for presence of the dye. Our data suggest that (1) a proportion of adult bees ingest the patty, (2) adult bees likely do not feed patty directly to larvae, (3) adult bees do not store patty like bee bread, and (4) only a very small proportion of patty is lost as debris. Collectively our data suggest that honey bee colonies use pollen substitute patties. However, patties likely do not replace the function of natural pollen entirely in terms of larval provisioning and long-term storage as bee bread.
商业养蜂人需要健康、多产的蜜蜂（Apis mellifera L.）群体，即使在景观中缺乏足够的花粉来维持这些群体。因此，许多商业养蜂人在他们的群体中花费大量的金钱和劳动力来使用花粉替代品。然而，关于花粉替代品的使用对蜜蜂群体健康的好处和坏处，文献中并没有达成共识。为了深入了解这一点，首先了解蜜蜂如何在其群体中分配花粉替代饼是很重要的。我们追踪了三种市售花粉替代饼（MegaBee、UltraBee、AP23）的命运，这些替代饼用无毒食用色素（亮蓝 FCF）染色作为阳性对照（糖衣）和未染色作为阴性对照，以及染色的消费控制（Crayola 模型魔术粘土），在 44 个蜜蜂群体中。我们使用分光光度法和肉眼检查，分析了成年蜜蜂的肠道、幼虫的肠道、蜜蜂面包储存物和蜂巢下的巢屑中是否存在染料。我们的数据表明：（1）一部分成年蜜蜂摄入了饼；（2）成年蜜蜂可能不会直接将饼喂给幼虫；（3）成年蜜蜂不会像蜜蜂面包一样储存饼；（4）只有很少一部分饼作为巢屑丢失。总的来说，我们的数据表明蜜蜂群体使用花粉替代饼。然而，从幼虫供应和作为蜜蜂面包的长期储存的角度来看，替代饼可能并不能完全替代天然花粉的功能。
