Use of hive with two entrances in greenhouses for Cantaloupe melon pollination

Abstract

Africanized honey bees are effective pollinators of many crops, but the management of these insects in greenhouse must be improved, since the confinement generally implies on population decline of the hive submitted to this stress situation. The present work aims to verify whether the use of hives with two entrances allows the mitigation of the harmful effects to the development of hives submitted to the confinement in greenhouses and the satisfactory fruit yield of Cantaloupe melons, regarding the demand for the pollination service. In february 2017, 300 seedlings of Cantaloupe melon will be transplanted into two greenhouses, in which an aperture will be made in the anti-Aphid side panel for the introduction of the hives with two entrances. For the evaluation of floral biology, the number of flowers produced per plant, the anthesis period, the viability of the pollen grains and the receptivity of the stigma will be verified. For the pollination tests, in one of the greenhouses the beehive with two entrances will have access inside the greenhouse from the beginning of the day until 12am and in the other the access will be allowed only between 9 and 12h. At other times the bees will be released for visitation outside the greenhouses. The number of bees going out and entering the hives will be checked from the beginning of the bee's activities until the end of the day. Each hive will remain for 10 days inside the greenhouse, being replaced by another hive until the end of the flowering period. The mapping will be done in the frames after removal of the hives from the greenhouses. The number of honeybees that visit the flowers inside the greenhouse will be verified. Regarding fruit production, we will evaluate pistiled flowers opened for insect visitors or not and visited by a defined number of honeybees (2, 4 or 8 visits). The fruiting rate, fruit weight and brix content of fruit pulp will be determined. For the statistical analysis, the data obtained will be submitted to analysis of variance and for the multiple comparisons will be used the test of Tukey, at the level of significance of 5%. (AU)