Project Overview
Commodities
- Animals: bees
- Animal Products: honey
Practices
- Crop Production: beekeeping
Proposal summary:
Beekeepers feed their honey bee colonies sugar syrup to provide carbohydrate nutrition when the colonies are newly formed and when there are no natural sources of nutrition available to the bees. The practice of supplemental feeding is becoming increasingly more common in the beekeeping industry because of pests and diseases and pollinator habitat loss. The most typical ratio of sugar syrup fed for the purpose of colony growth is 1 part sugar to 1 part water (1:1) by weight. However, this ratio of sugar to water is conducive to microbial growth, and black mold can and will propagate inside of the sugar syrup feeding containers. We propose to investigate whether or not this black mold is detrimental to the health of the colony, and whether or not the addition of bleach (sodium hypochlorite) to sugar syrup, with the purpose of preventing black mold growth, will result in improved colony health and ultimately increase the remunerative value of beekeeping operations.
Project objectives from proposal:
With this project we will evaluate the effects on colony performance of feeding sugar syrup with bleach, sugar syrup without bleach, and no supplemental sugar syrup at all. We will compare:
- Colony population growth: compare total number of frames of brood between experimental groups
- Colony weight gain: compare weight gain between experimental groups
- Rate of consumption: compare consumption rates of sugar syrup between experimental groups
- Brood pattern: compare brood patterns between experimental groups
- Microbial growth: compare presence of black mold in feeder jars between experimental groups
- Remunitive advantage: calculate and compare cost of bleach with colony performance
- Nosema levels: compare levels of Nosema ceranae between experimental groups
- Winter Survival: compare winter survival rates of colonies between experimental groups