Effects of different energetic feedings on Africanized Apis mellifera bees in storage genes expression during food shortage period

Abstract

Africanized Honeybees (Apis mellifera), to express their full potential of population development, colony maintenance, breeding, longevity and productivity, require all their nutritional needs supplied. Without this, colony can be affected by the queen posture decrease, adult bees decrease, pathogens susceptibility, survival rate decrease and as a consequence, low productivity. This happens mainly in the off-season, when there is a greater scarcity of food sources that supply nectar, the main energy food, and pollen, the protein source. For good productivity, hives must have a large population at blossom beginning. Thus, the supply of energy feeding in the off-season increase colony development, besides it results in larger honey production. The purpose of this study is to assess the effects of different energy foods (sugar syrup, inverted sugar and sugar cane juice), provided during off-season, in the population development and vitellogenin and hexamarin 70A genes expression, related to food storage. As a control, the actin gene will be assessed. Samples will be obtained from a previous study developed by Bruno Giovane Emílio Benaglia Animal Sciences undergraduate student at Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia de Botucatu (FMVZ-Botucatu). In this experiment, 20 Africanized Honeybee (Apis mellifera) hives were used, standardized from the number of breeding frames and feeding, with five hives per treatment: T1: Control (without feeding); T2: Sugar cane juice; T3: Sugar syrup and T4: Inverted sugar. One liter of each feed type was supplied per hive, twice a week, during 60 days, using a Boardman artificial feeder. Were collected 5 forager and 5 nursing bees on days 0, 30 and 60 of the experiment. The total RNA will be extracted from worker bees and genes expression related to food storage will be performed. The gene expression results will be compared with energy feedings provided and colony population development data. The results will be compared by ANOVA, followed by the Tukey test to verify differences between the averages and will be considered as statistically different when p<0,05. (AU)