Effect of Double Queen System on the Development and Foraging Activities of Apis mellifera Linn. Honey Bee Colonies
Mehraj Ahmad Khanday
Division of Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture, SKUAST-K Shalimar, India.
Manzoor Ahmad Paray
Division of Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture, SKUAST-K Shalimar, India.
Parveena Bano
Division of Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture, SKUAST-K Shalimar, India. b Division of Agricultural Statistics, Dean Faculty of Agriculture, SKUAST-K Wadura, India.
Shakeel Ahmad Mir
Division of Agricultural Statistics, Dean Faculty of Agriculture, SKUAST-K Wadura, India.
Muneeb ur Rehman
Division of Fruit Science, Faculty of Horticulture, SKUAST-K Shalimar, India.
F. A. Lone
Division of Environmental Science, Faculty of Horticulture, SKUAST-K Shalimar, India.
Sajad A. Ganie
Division of Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture, SKUAST-K Shalimar, India.
Sehrose Sharief
Division of Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture, SKUAST-K Shalimar, India.
Humira Mushtaq *
Division of Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture, SKUAST-K Shalimar, India.
Rumisa Ashraf
Division of Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture, SKUAST-K Shalimar, India.
Ulfat Manzoor
Division of Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture, SKUAST-K Shalimar, India.
S Suriya
Division of Entomology, Faculty of Agriculture, SKUAST-K Shalimar, India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
The two-queen system of colony management is based on the principle that honey production per unit number of bees increases as the population increases. Strong colonies not only produce more honey but they do it more efficiently than less populous colonies. Colony performance of A. mellifera under double queen system increased continuously throughout the spring season 2022. The maximum colony performance parameters viz., capped brood area (1236.35), pollen area (212.32) and honey area (4299.7) was observed in the T1 treatment and highest bee strength was observed in T2 treatment (8.82 bee-frames) followed by T1 treatment (8.79 bee-frames). The minimum colony performance parameters viz., capped brood area (563.43), pollen area (106.16), honey area (832.18) and bee strength (3.47 bee frames) was observed in the T8 treatment. The spring and autumn seasons of 2022 had the maximum foraging behaviour recorded between 1200 and 1300 hours in T1 treatment and the lowest foraging behaviour discovered between 1500 and 1600 hours. As regard to the foraging activity, the maximum number of incoming bees (107.02), outgoing bees (93.20) and nectar foragers (52.18) were recorded in T1 treatment and maximum number of pollen foragers’ (35.27) were recorded in T3 treatment. The minimum mean number of incoming bees (68.59), outgoing bees (50.31) and pollen foragers (16.09) were recorded in T8 treatment and minimum mean number of nectar foragers’ (28.01) were observed in T7 treatment.
Keywords: Apis mellifera L., two-queen system, brood area, pollen area, bee strength, foraging activity