The influence of feeding on Apis mellifera scutellata queen rearing and brood production

English: After vast numbers of Apis mellifera scufellafa colonies had to be destroyed as a result of Apis mellifera capensis infestations, the so-called Capensis problem, it became clear that there was a great need for efficient queen rearing in South Africa. A queen rearing programme in a commercial beekeeping business at Douglas was implemented to replace the large number of lost scufellafa colonies. Within the first week of queen rearing having started, large numbers of eggs were noticed in the queen cells, indicating capensis laying workers. The acceptance of grafted queen cell cups was very low in general, the highest percentage being 48 %. The percentage emergence of queen cells introduced into mating nucleus colonies was high, namely 95 %. However, only 44 % of these queens mated successfully, and had a normal brood pattern. This gave an overall success rate of 20 % maximally in the presence of Cape laying workers. A number of factors that influence queen rearing, excluding Cape laying workers, were investigated, namely different queen cup lengths, dry and wet grafting, and the interval between dequeening and grafting on acceptance on the grafted larvae. The bees preferred queen cell cups with a length of 9 mm (73,3 %) to other lengths of 7 mm (0,0 %), 8 mm (52,5 %) and 11,5 mm (33,4 %). Acceptance of queen cells was higher when larvae were grafted into a droplet afwater (72 %), compared to dry grafts (57 %). Acceptance of grafted queen cells was 73,3 % after a 24 hour queen less period, compared to 7,2 % after 8,5 hours without a queen. A 60 % sugar solution is recommended for feeding honeybees before a honeyflow or during queen rearing, because it was found not to ferment easily, thus necessitating feeding once a week only. Different pollen supplements and substitutes were tested for preference and brood production. On dry substitutes outside the hives, most bees were counted on the mixture of sifted maize and Lotmix ® (a cattle feed), to which dry powdered sugar had been added. The other substitutes that contained no maize meal, namely yeast and mixtures of yeast, soy and powder milk, were not collected. When natural pollen became more freely available, pollen substitutes were generally ignored. The following substitutes/supplements, in decreasing order of preference, were tested as moist patties inside hives: Beltsville substitute, fine maize meal, soy + pollen (3: 1), yeast + milk + pollen (2:2: 1), Pronutro ® (breakfast cereal), soy + pollen (9: 1), and soy + yeast + milk (3: 1:1). The following substitutes/supplements, in decreasing order of brood production, were tested: Pronutro ® + pollen (4:1), Beltsville substitute, soy + pollen (4:1), soy + yeast (3:2), soy + yeast + milk (3:1:1), and soy + yeast + egg (2: 1:1). The soy + pollen combination is recommended for the highest brood production at the lowest price. Natural pollen was most plentiful during September, November, December and April in Bloemfontein. The most abundant pollens were from Eucalyptus spp., Tribulus terrestris, Rhus lancea and Helianthus annuus. The different pollen types and their percentages were tabled for every month. The total amount of pollen trapped for the one year period was 3580,6 g. Pollen trap efficiency was calculated to be 10 %, therefore the total amount of pollen collected by the colony was approximately 35,8 kg.