
Nutritious
"Smoothie" Mix May Energize Honey BeesBy Marcia Wood July 29, 2003Just like people, honey bees need
nutritious food to stay strong and healthy. Now, more than two dozen beekeepers
throughout the United States are giving their bees a chance to taste-test a
new, high-energy drink formulated especially for hardworking honey bees. The new beverage formulation may bolster the pollination prowess of
domesticated honey bees, Apis mellifera. Honey bees are the primary
pollinators of dozens of fruit, nut, seed and fiber crops. The smoothie mix is a light-tan powder, about the texture of wheat flour.
The formula provides protein and carbohydrate needed to keep adult honey bees
well nourished when their regular foods--pollen and nectar from flowers--aren't
readily available. The powdered formula is the work of entomologist Gordon I. Wardell of
Arizona-based SAFE Research and Development LLC and ARS colleague Gloria
DeGrandi-Hoffman, research leader and entomologist at the ARS
Carl Hayden Bee Research Centerin Tucson, Ariz. Wardell is collaborating with ARS colleagues under terms of a
new Cooperative Research and Development Agreement. The dry mix is less expensive to produce, and less cumbersome to store, than
liquid formulas. According to the scientists, beekeepers should be able to mix
the powder with corn syrup or other sugary syrup. Then, using conventional
equipment already on hand, they could easily pump the high-energy drink into
hives for hungry adult bees to sip. Supplemental foods for honey bees aren't new. But the formulas that the
Arizona researchers are creating should sidestep a key problem of some of
supplemental foods, developed earlier. Those older foods didn't provide the
nutrients essential to worker bees. As a result, worker bees raised on those
formulas would eventually stop producing a royal jelly for feeding to
developing bees. The result? Production of new bees could soon stop, meaning
that the colony could no longer flourish. Vigorous colonies are especially important today, since numerous honey bee
hives in the United States have been hit hard in recent years by mites and
other enemies. ARS is the
U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief
scientific research agency. U.S. Department of Agriculture |