La alimentación artificial para la cría de las abejas.

Abstract

The objective of this work was to study artificial diets for bee brood. Data were collected from different scientific journal databases such as SciELO and Scopus, E-book, digital repositories such as ESPOCH’s Dspace, doctoral theses, and scientific articles. The variables studied were the following: initial hive weight (kg), final hive weight (kg), weight gain (kg), food consumption (kg), brood frame at the beginning of the study (average per frame), brood frame at the end of the study (average per frame), colony growth (average per frame), and economic evaluation. The results show that colonies had the same weight at the beginning of the study and that colonies fed with protein diet (30% soybean meal) gained weight (6.90 kg) at the end of this study. As for food consumption, sugar syrup was the most consumed food (1.00 kg) because it is highly palatable and known for its energy value. Regarding the colony growth variable, brood frames were evaluated at the beginning and at the end of the study, obtaining an increase of chambers on average (5.00) with artificial diets mixed with corn starch (25%) + honey (10%) + soybean meal (45%) + pollen (20%); whereas the economic evaluation variable shows that soybean meal (30%) recorded a cost-benefit ratio of $4.70. The implementation of artificial diet for bee brood in apiaries increases not only the production of beekeeping products such as honey, royal jelly and pollen but also formation of nuclei.