Gabriela Quinlan, Mehmet Ali Döke, Yarira Ortiz-Alvarado, Norma Rodriguez-Gomez, Yilmaz Berk Koru, Robyn Underwood
In temperate climates, honey bees rely on stored carbohydrates to sustain them throughout the winter. In nature, honey serves as the bees' source of carbohydrates, but when managed, beekeepers often harvest honey and replace it with cheaper, artificial feed. The effects of alternative carbohydrate sources on colony survival, strength, and individual bee metabolic health are poorly understood. We assessed the impacts of carbohydrate diets (honey, sucrose syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, and invert syrup) on colony winter survival, population size, and worker bee nutritional state (i...
November 1, 2023: Journal of Insect Science