Worker bees, sealed brood, bee bread and vitellogenin as parameters for colony vitality

J.J.M. van der Steen

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingAbstract

    Abstract

    The vitality of an individual honey bee depends on several factors e.g. the age related physiological condition, stress factors like diseases and parasites and quantity and quality of the protein feed. The honey bee colony is a super organism with trophallaxis and feed- back mechanisms to maintain the vitality of the colony. Therefore the vitality of the colony must be established on colony level. This raises the questions what matrix should be used and what is a representative sample of a colony. Bees from the flight entrance do not represent the colony as older forager bees are over represented. In case in-hive bees are sampled, knowledge of the age distribution is important. On all brood frames in summer, the age distribution is about 25% 1 week bees, 25% 2 week bees, 25% 3 week bees and 25% 4 + 5 week bees. On storage frames the older bees are overrepresented
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationCOLOSS Workshop WG 3: Honey bee colony vitality, Wageningen, The Netherlands, 30 June - 1 July 2011 (COST Action FA0803)
    EditorsJ.J.M. van der Steen
    Place of PublicationWageningen
    PublisherPlant Research International
    Pages18-19
    Publication statusPublished - 2011
    EventCOLOSS Workshop WG 3: Honey bee colony vitality, Wageningen, The Netherlands -
    Duration: 30 Jun 20111 Jul 2011

    Workshop

    WorkshopCOLOSS Workshop WG 3: Honey bee colony vitality, Wageningen, The Netherlands
    Period30/06/111/07/11

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